


Alterans - Not Quite the Blithering Idiots of Lore

by syipinc



Category: Multi-Fandom, Stargate (1994)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2020-07-09 21:34:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 51
Words: 131,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19894690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syipinc/pseuds/syipinc
Summary: A young boy and domestic pet cat swallows a mysterious blue pebble from a rock collection....mix, stir, and shake well for an out of character take on the Stargate TV series uber race, The Alterans.





	1. Take the Blue Pill, and The Story Begins

...Australia...Earth...1974...

It was nice warm Saturday morning when I woke up early in bed at my Grampa's house, with a very friendly Fluffy the Cat sprawled possessively on the covers on top of me, with his mouth opened with fangs poking out and not quite drooling. Being a big pumpkin orange fluffy cat of a breed known as 'Maine Coon' so my Grampa says, Fluffy was big...and heavy, though that might be because he's awkward to move around in that liquid boneless clingy way cats seem to become when you need them to be somewhere else.

It took a bit of effort to squirm out the side of the covers from under the big orange cat, and no sooner had I set feet on the parquetry than the Fluffy woke up, blinked at me with an inscrutable cat look and hopped off to follow me as I made a bee line to the bathroom.

Grampa hadn't gotten up to make breakfast, so I was quietly exploring on my own and pretending to look for 'treasure' with Fluffy following behind me in the pretend hunt. Not so long ago, when he was smaller, Fluffy use to pounce on me the moment I knelt down and looked around the corner for 'wild animals' prowling the corridor...these days, Fluffy understood enough about the game of pretend, that he often poked his head around the corner with me to see whether the coast was clear before following.

I made my way from the bathroom on tip toes with the alert big Fluffy orange cat following in my steps and sometime poking his nose at me for a sniff. We paused just before the living room, and I cautiously crouched and poked my head around the corner into the living room, and a crouching Fluffy on all fours crept underneath me to poke his head around the French doors to see what I was looking at, that had caused me to go still...Treasure.

Or rather, my Grampa's rock collection in the glass display case cabinet.

Fascinating colourful rocks, lovely jade greens, deep orange and shiny red rocks, white rock speckled with a scattering of gold flecks, purple crystals – rocks which spanned the colour of the rainbow. To my four year old eyes, it was treasure, attractive colourful treasure like crayons and colour pencils, lovely lovely vibrant colours like hard sugar candy and some that looked an appealing delicious transparent like quivering jello.

It was this relationship to food which attracted me to one particularly vibrant examples of chocolate Smartie sized sapphire blue gemlike pebbles which looked very delicious to a four year old's mind, that I just had to taste it out of curiosity. It looked like a lolly, and my life experience with sugary treats to date suggested that something that looked that clear and blue, just had to be yummy...Treasure.

I placed my index finger across my lips at Fluffy, whom blinked at me and licked his muzzle in reply – Grampa's bedroom was on the other side of the lounge, offside the small dining room which use to be a 'smoking room' at the back of the house overlooking the backyard and separate garage, which Grampa said the people who built the Federation house use to smoke cigars in, where the actual dining room next to the kitchen had been converted to his bedroom with an nice view of the backyard and the pomegranate tree.

Fluffy and I listened intently for signs of adult activity, before deciding the coast was clear and trotted over to the cabinet display case with all those lovely rocks which looked like colourful candy on display. The cabinet wasn't locked, so I slid back the glass display door and licked my lips as I reached for the blue gem which had fried my four year old sense of self preservation.

Hmmm...I picked the rock up...the rock was hard, but so was candy.

I opened my mouth and stuck my tongue out as I brought the Smartie size gem closer, between by thumb and index finger when Fluffy pushed his head into the back of my neck in an insistent headbutt as he sniffed to get a dibs on what he thought was food, and I swallowed in reflex as the small blue button shaped crystal I'd placed on my tongue to taste, feeling it slide down my throat.

Then it was gone, as I stood there a moment in the worried realisation that one of Grampa's rock collection was now in the pit of my tummy...I blinked, then turned to glare accusingly at Fluffy, his nose to my face and sniffing with his normal catlike innocent look as if to imply he wasn't responsible for getting me in trouble.

Oh, I was probably in trouble...maybe...if I just shut the glass door and went back to bed, Grampa wouldn't notice the missing blue rock in the cabinet ?

The abnormally big bushy tailed two year old mottled tawny pumpkin orange fluffy furred cat looked back at me innocently with wide amber green eyes, as I wondered what to do next. He sat back on his haunches and breathed down the back of my neck as he licked he right paw, chirping a query as I stood in front of my grandfather's cupboard displaying his rock collection and wondered whether it was too late to pretend I hadn't just eaten a rock. 

From a four year old child's perspective, the brighter coloured rocks had looked like candy and I'd a burning curiosity as to what they'd taste like for a long while now.

My curiosity was now satisfied...

Yuck.

Bright coloured rocks taste like...well, rock.

It sure wasn't candy.

I looked accusingly at fur face, whom was looking dumb and innocent animal like he hadn't just made me eat a blue rock.

Well, if I was going to get in trouble, then Fluffy might as well get punished right alongside me.

A lesson needed to be taught, which seemed very reasonable to my four year old's logic.

“Bad Fluffy,” I admonished, looking back at the open cupboard and noted that there was another blue button shaped crystal fragment in the display case. With a four year old's rationalisation, I decided to my big four legged furry orange companion a lesson which my Grampa seemed particularly fond of, that 'Do unto others' one, so I took the crystal and thrust out on the palm of my hand, “Eat, Fluffy.”

The shiny blue crystal sat in the palm of my hand.

The big orange cat shrank back as he examined the small blue crystal a moment, sniffing curiously and gave me an odd catty 'wut' perplexed look of feline confusion.

I suppose he knew I wasn't happy with him as I held out the remaining blue crystal bit of rock in my palm with an expectant frown. Fluffy also knew what it meant when I held out my hand with something in it, as the cat was a sucker for jelly beans that after a short feline pause where I frowned at him with a meaningful shake of my palm, he eagerly slurped up the crystal without hesitation.

The cat chirped in consternation as the unexpectedly hard object went down his throat.

I nodded sternly as only a four year old can, satisfied that Fluffy had been appropriately punished for making me eat a rock, then looked at the cupboard now missing two items, and had the intuitive feeling I was going to be in trouble when my grandfather woke up and found out about it. Keeping silent seemed like a prudent move as I slid the glass door of the display cupboard shut, then suddenly felt very tired which was quite at odds with the burst of energy I'd woken up in just a few moments ago.

I blinked as my eyesight went a little fuzzy, and I decided to trundle off back to bed...the matter of the missing crystals in the display cabinet was already forgotten as I felt my body become leaden with weariness. A decidedly sleepy Fluffy mewed, having already dismissed the incident too as he followed me, shaking his head with in a tired and increasing unco-ordinated fashion as he padded alongside me with his usual proprietary supervisory manner.

I crawled back under the covers, and the big fluffy orange cat settled comfortably in his accustomed place on top of me in a proprietary manner. Fluffy bared impressive fangs in an equally big feline yawn then dropped his head down on my chest once I got comfortable enough to stop squirming under him.

“G'nite, Fwuffy,” I felt my leaden eyelids droop as my speech slurred, my breath oozing out in a shudder.

“Mrow,” Fluffy replied at the drowsiness weighing him down, and slumped.

We both closed our eyes and dropped off and stilled in a wave of sudden unexplained exhaustion, and the beginning of a deep sleep as inhuman 'things' cracked out of their hardened blue stasis shells according to programming that was ancient when the continents of Earth were moving into recognisable positions, and began moving for the first time in millions of years in a new biological environment...and began replicating...

* * *

In the guts of the unsuspecting young boy and big fluffy orange pet cat, ancient nanoscopic machines began breaking free of the blue tinted crystalline stasis shell which had contained them in dormancy, until a suitable biological environment allowed them to hatch – the corrosive environment of stomach acid was instrumental in the activation, as the seemingly simple orb shaped machines began dispersing into the bloodstream where they began encountering larger iron based blood haemoglobin platelets.

No sooner had the smaller viral sized orbs impacted into a blood cell, then the haemoglobin plates fused in a burst of chemical energy, and split to become more globular nano-machines in an ever increasing exponential subversion and transformation of red blood cells. The replication of the nanoscale alien machinery circulating through the blood stream exploded in numbers, which began infiltrating flesh for more resources in which to replicate more specialised organs according to ancient programming.

And it was here, that the new specialised nanites with expanded processing capability reached a critical mass within the fitfully twitching boy and cat, whom were very much unaware of the changes they were undergoing as they slept. Nanite replication slowed down at this stage to avoid 'cooking' the hosts from overheating, the specialised nanites then using local biochemical energy sources to carry out an analysis of genetic sequences of their hosts.

The genetic makeup was marginal and identified as 'gross damage' to known established baselines where 'common' infrastructure like neural nets and other common augmentation was notably absent, that infrastructure construction priorities were earmarked. The industrious nanites spent the limited energy and resources available to it to construct rudimentary 'subspace aerial' organs in which to contact the authorities and archives for information and instruction...however, if the growing legions of nanites could be surprised, they would have been at the results.

None of the established informational resources could be contacted, nor higher authorisation.

Which was impossible. 

In several tens of millions of years of galactic and intergalactic civilisation, there had been no precedent for such a thing as a communications blackout.

The absence of such ubiquitous information nodes that even emergency sources which were absent to the distance of several light years of the subspace communications range, could only occur in the even of a total collapse and destruction of civilisation...fortunately, there were backup protocols for such a dire emergency.

The nanites switched from 'read only' mode in which they had been operating in a 'dumb terminal' script fashion, to independent autonomous 'survival' mode where priorities shifted from merely construction of missing infrastructure, to the construction of full on survival of the species combat package where genetic reconstruction to baseline was mandated, on the assumption that the few identifiable gene fragments were the results of corruption from a genetic weapon having been deployed...effectively, the hosts were now 'stealthed' to external detection, until the situation clarified.

Growth centres of neural lace was budded amidst brain tissue to provide computational resources for large scale genetic reconstruction, which would proceed in phases as new resources came online. The nanites began sending lances of neural lace into the brains of the boy and pet cat to acquire further information of local conditions and potential threats, the authorisation for such drastic invasion of privacy being overridden by 'survival' protocols which were now in effect.

The nanites began to independently act and make decisions to promote survival of the reconstituted species that was being rebuilt around the genetic fragments, as the boy and cat were surgically and genetically transformed from the inside out in a fashion which contemporary 20th Century terrestrial science would have labelled an unethical medical abomination, a Frankenstein's monstrosity from brain to organs, skeleton and muscles and connective tissue which were metaphorically ripped out, genetically 'improved' then transplanted back in place.

For the benefit of preserving anonymity whilst incubating, external physical appearances were preserved even as everything under the hood was undergoing a genetic overhaul which in biological terms, shifted the sweating sleeping boy firmly out of the species of Homo Sapiens, and evolved the panting dozing fluffy orange cat beyond the species of Felis Catus.

Internal activity quietened as resources were depleted...both cat and boy woke simultaneously.

* * *

Benjamin Llewellyn Sung woke up to an unusually quiet household, as his grandson wasn't parked in front of the black and white TV watching the morning cartoons, with the pet cat he'd picked up one day down at Sydney's Haymarket as a kitten, whom now followed the boy around everywhere. A quick check revealed that his grandson Sammy and the cat Fluffy still in bed and fast asleep, that Benjamin quietly closed the bedroom door and allowed them to rest undisturbed.

The tribulations of raising a grandchild on his own whilst the boy's parents were getting their Chinese restaurant up and running, was enough of a tiring experience that Benjamin was grateful for the reprieve that the boy wasn't up and running around the household, and getting up to mischief with the cat.

By the time he made breakfast and set out the places along with pouring out some dried cat food in the dish for the pet, Sammy and Fluffy still hadn't woken up that he checked in on them again to find both breathing evenly and still fast asleep. The four year old boy had shifted about and thrown back the covers, wrapping his arms and legs around the big cat which was larger than he was, the peaceful domestic scene was so precious that Benjamin let them be after taking a few pictures for posterity. 

Rather than wake them up, Benjamin had gone back to the kitchen and covered the breakfast for when his grandson woke up, and took the opportunity to go do some gardening and maintenance in the backyard without the boy trying to 'help', which more often than not resulted in more things which required fixing.

Time flew that when Benjamin looked up from picking snow peas for dinner after intermittently checking in to find both cat and boy still peacefully sleeping, the sun was overhead and it was early noon. He headed back into the house with the red plastic 'Made in Hong Kong' basket of home grown snow peas he'd harvested from the garden, placed the basket in the sink and washed his hands as he looked over and found the breakfast and cat food he'd left out had been eaten.

“...pattycake, pattycake, baker’s man, bake me a cake as fast as you can...”

Benjamin Llewellyn Sung smiled at the sound of his grandson's shrill childish voice from the four year old's bedroom, where he'd evidently gone back to after eating the breakfast which had been left out. The bright curious child was a handful to keep track of, and was forever running around and getting into mischief, Benjamin thought as he went to check on the boy. 

On the bright side, the big fluffy cat did a pretty good job keeping up with an energetic four year old.

Unusually, Sammy and his cat Fluffy had slept the morning away even though Benjamin had checked in on the two every so often to make sure they were okay, he'd been becoming a little concerned by the time early noon rolled around and Sammy hadn't woken for breakfast, that it was a relief to hear his grandson was finally up and about.

Benjamin peered into the bedroom upon the curious sight of Sammy sitting in bed, facing his cat Fluffy whom was sitting back on his haunches with big tufted front paws pads held up and watching with alert green eyes, was so precious that Benjamin could only smile. That smile became a little amazed when he realised Sammy was playing pattycake with his cat.

He'd taught Sammy how to play patty cake, and the young boy's co-ordination had been improving.

The cat was doing quite well too, actually.

Paw met child's palm time and again as Sammy chanted, the pumpkin furred cat even clapping paws at the appropriate timing in a disconcerting display of cognition...then again, Fluffy was a very intelligent cat, Benjamin thought as his eyebrow rose with a surprised smile at the scene, feeling a surge of pride that his precocious grandson had trained his pet to play pattycake so well.

Well, yes, it WAS highly unusual, but Fluffy was an odd kind of cat from the outset, being much larger than the average domestic tabby one normally sees on the prowl in the backyard, and had a big bushy tail which normal cats didn't. Were other smaller cats were inclined to be somewhat aloof, Fluffy had an almost doglike character.

“Grampa look, Fluffy can really talk now !,” an excited Sammy exclaimed suddenly, “Say something to Grampa, Fluffy !”

“Chirp,” Fluffy looked over his shoulder and chirped on cue, then with some effort, “Harroww ?”

Other cats meowed, Fluffy chirped.

Benjamin had noted a while ago that Fluffy almost never meowed, and unusually the pumpkin orange cat actually like playing fetch which was highly unusual for Fluffy's normally disdainfully aloof feline species.

“See ? Fluffy said hello,” Sammy interpreted the chirp, rubbing a satisfied looking Fluffy head between the cat's ears, whom appeared decidedly pleased.

“That's very good,” Benjamin encouraged patiently, “Are you alright ? It's almost lunch time, I was starting to worry when you didn't wake up for breakfast.”

“Chirp chirp,” Fluffy butted his head under Sammy's petting hand.

“Fluffy said it's probably something we ate,” Sammy frowned a moment in confusion, blanched suddenly and changed the subject as the young boy perked up, “We ate breakfast earlier, but we're both hungry again, Grampa !”

“Meeku,” Fluffy agreed with an odd sounding chirp, licking his lips, ducking out from under Sammy's hand.

“You too, huh ?,” a smiling Sammy interpreted for Benjamin's sake, “Lets go eat some Rice Bubbles.”

Fluffy hopped off the bed as Sammy jumped off, the both of them running past Benjamin to the kitchen.

Benjamin laughed at the image he knew he would treasure, that of his grandson and pet cat playing pattycake – and this latest development, claiming Fluffy could talk...okay, if you you stretched imagination then 'Harroww' sounded like 'hello' and 'meeku' much like 'me too' when attempted to pronounced through a cat's muzzle.

Or he could just be getting senile in his old age.

Children and their imaginations, Benjamin shook his head and dismissed the momentary musings.

“Be careful, don't run into the table !,” children are so precious, Benjamin sighed as he followed the two. He'd always regretted missing out in being a part of his own children's lives due the fact they'd both lived with their mother in China, while he worked to establish himself in Australia so he could bring them over.

He missed his own children's formative years, but Benjamin had decided to make up for it by being a large part of his grand children's, particularly this one grandchild – Samuel Corwyn Sung. Sammy's parents were working hard to establish their suburban restaurant in the community, finding the time to care for a lively young child was difficult so Benjamin had stepped up to volunteer.

The two ravenously devoured the box of Rice Bubbles with a bottle of milk as Benjamin began preparing for an early dinner, when the two disappeared off to their own devices after they'd finished eating. It was after half an hour when the rice was cooking and the side dishes were being steamed, that Benjamin suddenly became aware of the fact that it was quiet.

Too quiet, and the TV wasn't on...the TV was ALWAYS on, that the quiet was unnatural.

“Sam ?,” Benjamin called out to check on the boy's where abouts.

“Here,” the boy's high pitched young voice replied readily from the living room.

“Are you watching TV ?,” Benjamin asked as he dried his hands, as he couldn't hear the television.

“Reading,” the boy replied.

Sammy couldn't read...well, not without alot of help and a great deal of grandparental patience, that Benjamin paused in a moment of concern for the safety of his small library, and the collection of Hollywood movie memorabilia he'd collected during the 50s and 60s when he'd still some delusions that life could have some hope and glamour or something better to it, instead of the dull struggle of the Australian reality which had worn him down.

He opened the fridge and filled a plastic cup of orange juice as an enticement to coax the boy from destroying more books, and fearing the worse for his library, Benjamin went to the living room to find his grandson lying on his stomach beside the cat, carefully turning the pages of one of the volumes of his 1962 edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

Rather than the feared destruction he'd expected to find, Benjamin became the focus of his grandson and pet cat whom studied him a moment with disconcerting bright intelligent eyes from the encyclopedia the two were parked in front of, “I brought some juice.”

“Oh, orange juice,” Sammy smiled as he got up and reached for, “Vitamain C, Ascorbic acid – that'll work. Fluffy needs some too.”

“Chirp,” the big fluffy orange cat licked his muzzle.

“I don't think cats can drink orange juice, they produce vitamin C in their liver so it might make Fluffy sick,” Benjamin replied as his grandson took the plastic cup and drank some, “Cats eat meat, it's not healthy for a cat to eat fruits...”

Sammy held out his plastic cup of juice to Fluffy whom sniffed at its contents...then ligaments and musculature crunched and popped in one of those 'out of context' actions which made Benjamin jump back a step, as the cat stood up and sat on his hind paws while grasping the cup between his forepaws from his grandson's hands, tilted it back and began thirstily drinking in a 'human' fashion rather than lapping the fluid with his tongue like a cat.

“Okay, Fluffy ?,” Sammy asked the big orange cat whom was now looming over his shorter four year old's stature.

“Waugh,” the cat replied with seemingly anthropomorphic human satisfaction, his tongue licking his muzzle of the orange juice adhering to his fur and whiskers as his tail swished back and forth at the experience, and held the now empty cup out to Benjamin with wide amber-green eyes, “Moarrr.”

“It's okay, he can drink it,” Sammy replied evenly, not at all phased nor stumbling over his words.

“Er, okay – uh, you shouldn't share your cup and food with the Fluffy,” Benjamin admonished weakly as he took his grandson's plastic cup back from the out of character cat, “What's good for people isn't good for a cat.”

“Moooooarrr,” Fluffy rowled insistently as he put his right orange tufted paw on Sammy's left shoulder and bobbed his head in a rough approximation of a nod as his bushy tail quivered with approval, “Ooooss, Moarrr Ooos !”

Benjamin twitched and stared at the very oddly behaving cat – no...it couldn't be.

“More juice,” Sammy interpreted helpfully, “We need the extra vitamin C for that metabolism thing.”

“Hmm,” Benjamin puckered his lips with slow nods as he backed out of the living room with the empty plastic cup, “Okaaaay, yeah...sure. More juice.”

Benjamin heard his grandson say to the cat as he went to the kitchen to get more orange juice, “I think you scared Grampa, Fluffy. You should let me do the talking around people.”

“Hokay,” the cat chirped back agreeably.

“Lets read some more, Fluffy,” Sammy suggested.

“Mrow,” agreed the cat vocally as he dropped back down on all fours and scampered back to the encyclopedia.

“I'm too old for this,” Benjamin muttered softly with a shake of his head at how to respond to the bizarre situation, as he put the empty plastic cup in the sink for washing, and poured two fresh cups of orange juice as he wondered what the Hell was going on which had resulted in a talking cat – or a cat who was making an amateur attempt at talking in human speech given the evidence

There was a strong temptation to grab the broomstick or bring out the Lee-Enfield rifle from out of the cupboard, but Benjamin resisted the urge and came back from the kitchen with two fresh plastic cups of orange juice for his grandson and cat, having by now mulled over the out of character antics and caught on that something was very much out of place with the two as they'd returned to reading the encyclopedia where they'd left off before being interrupted.

“When did Fluffy start talking ?,” Benjamin prompted as the two drank orange juice, the cat doing so in a very uncatlike manner as it held the cup between his paws.

“Fluffy always could,” Sammy frowned, perplexed at the question, “I think ?”

“Hrrrm,” Fluffy purred a rumbling agreement as he licked his muzzle, “Oorows.”

“What Fluffy said, always,” Sammy confirmed.

Benjamin diplomatically didn't say anything more, but just sat down on the lounge with a calming cup of tea as he waited for the food to finish steaming in the kitchen, keeping a closer eye on his grandson whom was acting oddly well behaved. It was very much out of context to his experiences that he wasn't sure whether to call an ambulance, or a priest over the possible possession his grandchild and his pet cat may have fallen to...in the end, he did neither as the boy and cat quietly browsing the encyclopedia asked for Benjamin's help reading the more difficult words.

That much was familiar enough, that doubts were raised in Benjamin's mind about the possession angle.

The ambulance would cost money Benjamin was a bit short that he didn't really have much to spare, and the priest – well, he'd heard disturbing stories and rumours circulating about the Church from friends amongst the Chinese community which minded him to stay away, and Benjamin was damned if he'd let the religious quacks get involved with his grandson.

No, it was cheaper and safer to just watch developments for the moment that Benjamin found some joy in helping his grandson make out the more difficult words, while curiously observing the cat's high pitched voice attempting to sound out the same, affirmed that whatever had 'possessed' the creature was more interested in acquiring knowledge than turning into some kind of destructive alien monster – positive attributes according to the more exotic old Chinese beliefs of benevolent ancestral spirits whom watched out for their descendants, at least fit into Benjamin's currently chaotic and confused world view as to what actually constituted 'reality'.

Nothing else really made a whole lot of sense, and Benjamin really didn't think calling the police in a panic and telling them to come fast because the cat started talking, would go down too well with the authorities, or his future prospects of staying out of a sanity asylum.

* * *


	2. Senile Nanites and other developments

...Australia...Earth...1974...

It was unprecedented that a nanite colony, for that matter, ANY nanite colony, could achieve 'Self Autonomy' to independently act on its own input. There were in fact, a great number of fail safe protocols both at the hardware programming level, and levels of external authorisations and databases standing in the way of such an event, as nobody wanted a runaway nanite replication occurring which could just as well turn a planetary biosphere into orange Tang.

That a nanite colony could attain Self Autonomy, meant that ALL the fail safes protocols had actually failed, and the extreme circumstances abrogating the lengthy list of checks and balances preventing such an event, had been satisfied.

Namely, the near total absence of the multi-species polity which indicated the collapse of the 'Pax', otherwise known as 'Civilisation'...specifically, that of the Anquietas Humanitaes Pax Altera, otherwise known to the galactic community as the 'Ancient Cultures of Altera Civilisation', often shortened to 'The Ancients' or 'The Culture' by its member species, or respectfully referring to its founding species, 'The Altera'.

Considering the Pax encompassed the length and breadth of the galaxy known as the Milky Way, and extended into neighbouring galaxies and comprised of tens of thousands of member civilisations and species, the chances of the ubiquitous low level nanite population accidentally attaining Self Autonomy and running amok, was deemed so minute that it may as well have been an impossibility.

But. 

It happened. 

And the circumstances which two isolated colonies of nanites that had found themselves hatching in a suitable biological environment to a galaxy bereft of the 'Pax' or indication of the presence of Humanitaes, consequently slipped out of 'Read Only' mode after running down the checklist confirming that Civilisation had either backslid drastically and not recovered from the mysterious catastrophe which had brought it low on a galactic scale...or, that the Pax had collapsed entirely, and not recovered.

This was something which considering the size and depth of penetration of the Pax upon the primary Milky Way galaxy, everyone within the Pax assumed could only occur by an external massively destructive hostile action of a polity larger and more powerful than the Humanitaes.

The Self Autonomous nanites operated under the assumption that until otherwise verified, a powerful unknown Enemy had destroyed the Pax and ended known civilisation. One of the first things the nanite colonies had done upon failure to establish contact with any Authorities or Archives, was to enact 'Stealth' procedures and create the organs to mask both itself and its host organisms from detection.

To all intents and purposes, the hosts organisms known as 'Sammy' and 'Fluffy', effectively disappeared from the galaxy by all known means of casual detection available to the Humanitaes – one actually need to know what to look for, to find the pair of unsuspecting nanite carriers.

Now, the detection of fragmentary 'Alteran' genetic sequences in one of the host organisms by the nanite is somewhat erroneous, and under normal circumstances, the decision of the isolated nanite colonies to reconstruct the genetic code fragments to 'Alteran' specification, would not normally have been authorised – the suggestion of which would have been considered a medical and ethical abomination...however, in the absence of an external authorising sources and the checks and balances being abrogated, the nanites simply took 'desperate measures' to reconstitute an authorising source.

The horror of such a drastic course, can not be understated.

The analogy in mechanical terms, would amount to finding a bolt or a nut which once belonged to the World War 2 era USS Enterprise, and reconstructing an entire ship around it...where upon the vessel would then be arbitrarily named 'Enterprise' on the assumption it was one and the same with direct lineage. 

This may seem innocuous at first glance, as one would assume that the resultant vessel rebuilt from the DNA of the bolt or nut would be a WW2 era aircraft carrier...however, that's assuming those responsible for the 'rebuild', weren't just looking for an excuse to symbolically hang the Enterprise lineage to the 'rebuilt' vessel that was constructed in orbit, and designed to cruise in depths of space rather than the seas of Earth. 

Simply, the nanites found 'something' which resembled a minute genetic fragment of a the founding Alteran species within one of the host organisms, and used it as an excuse to 'reconstruct' an Alteran around it.

Now, again taken at face value, this 'may' sound like a good thing...except, people are not inanimate pieces of metal.

The practical reality is, an in situ full body genetic replacement is downright horrific in practice, and would never pass the ethical sniff test of a civilisation which had an inkling of what it really involved.

While it may appear the host organism is externally unchanged by genetic 'transplantation', the horrific reality is that such a genetic rebuild is like a parasitic cancer or virus which devours the substance of one's flesh, rendering blood, organs, bones, muscle and ligaments on a genetic level which make the building blocks of a species...and using the 'digested' matter as raw material to become something else altogether.

In 70s TV trope terms, it's much like being turned into a pod person – the new organism may continue to think it's the original it resembles...until proven otherwise, where the squicky flailing tentacles then burst out to the horror of unsuspecting bystanders.

Then there's the rather intractable problem of a 'Soul', without which the new 'reconstructed' organism is little more than a marionette zombie under the delusions it's alive. Fortunately, Souls can be transplanted if precautions are taken to prevent it drifting off, whilst the physical corporeal body housing it is ripped apart and put back together again like a Frankenstein monster...the Soul motivating the body, just needed to be 'anchored' in place until the blood and guts metaphorically being ripped out and replaced was complete.

Sinking neural lace into brain tissue to pin the Soul in place, is the equivalent of carrying out brain surgery with a hack saw and chisel. It's very crude, even if it does work and the patient survives to recover from the ordeal, it does not diminish the horror of the practice havng been performed in the first place...

Suffice to say, the circumstances which allows such a thing to be carried out on a sentient creature were as extenuating as it was dire...it's 'Not That Simple' as it sounds, even if the host organisms being arbitrarily 'volunteered' by its nanites to participate, are unsuspecting of the horror that's happening to them.

* * *

Yesterday had been odd in many ways.

I'd woken up late in the morning, and the world had made sense in a way it hadn't before. The letters like 'A is for Apple, B is for Ball, C is for Cat' which Grampa read to me from the picture book, were no longer fuzzy and indistinct things, but jumped out with meaning that even words without the associated pictures could be sounded out and understood.

I found out I could read the words in the encyclopedia, the indistinct whispered meanings assembled from the fuzzy memories before the morning, became clearer and stronger the more words I read.

And the more I read, the more I understood, my mind soaking up words and meanings and interests which fired off more paths to explore down. Soon I wasn't just sounding out words or asking Grampa who'd came and helped me read...but I knew the meanings behind what the words were trying to describe.

I knew. I remembered and could link 'knowledge' to things I'd already read before, and there was no fuzziness to the meanings.

I only had to read the words once, and I remembered...and soon, by the time Grampa had gone to make dinner, I didn't even have to read the words anymore for them to make sense, the words on the page was like an image inside my head, the meanings and concepts the books were trying to say just came together...and I understood.

History, chemistry, physics, mathematics, algebra, calculus...whatever was in the volumes of the encyclopedia, I just absorbed, and the information somehow meshed together from a soup of words and numbers to become knowledge I could comprehend.

And Fluffy was the same.

But, that wasn't the only thing I could understand...Grampa was worried about me.

I don't think I would have been concerned about it before the morning began, or even noticed enough to think about being worried before I was able to read properly. The bulk of my existence so far had been limited to within the walls of the house and the backyard...and Fluffy, whom occupied a large portion of my affections, followed closely by Grampa and then my...parents ?

Well, I never really saw much of my mother and father, whom were busy at work building a customer base in their Chinese restaurant in the Sydney suburbs. Strange as it sounded, I conceptually understood where 'Sydney' was now on the planet Earth, but only had fleeting fuzzy memories of where my parent's restaurant was in Sydney.

And I could 'talk' to Fluffy.

Those same whispers inside my head, also spoke what Fluffy was thinking – a 'network', where what Fluffy read or saw, I also knew. In this way, all kinds of information passed between Fluffy and I, to become knowledge we could both understand.

Something was happening to us, but the whispers of information in the background were still too indistinct for Fluffy and I to grasp. Those whispers seemed to slip through our paws and hands when we tried to grasp them, though after some headache inducing effort to pin them down before bedtime after dinner, we managed to figure they were coded instructions of some kind...very complex instructions, which simply didn't make sense.

Letters within a twisted ladder, a bridge of mysterious information, comprising of sequences of molecules and elements...it was very complex, the meaning remaining stubbornly incomprehensible than the knowledge we'd read in the encyclopedia, which seemed simple and superficial by comparison...well, there was a frustrating lack of depth to the encyclopedia on many topics, like they just skimmed the meaning and never tried to dig any deeper.

Just enough information, which wasn't quite enough to become knowledge.

We had dinner together, and Grampa had asked me some questions after Fluffy and I took our bath – I don't know why the Britannica said cats don't like water, Fluffy doesn't have any problems playing in the bath and I vaguely remember from te fuzzy memories before the morning, that we always took our bath together.

I told him I was okay and not feeling sick as we dried Fluffy off with a towel and a hair dryer, then brushed out his fur with his hair brush....Fluffy's a very clean cat, even Grampa says so, which is why he didn't mind too much that Fluffy and I slept together in my bed instead of making Fluffy sleep in his basket, which the big orange cat doesn't like much.

Dry and comfy, Fluffy and I went to bed where I crawled under the blankets and Fluffy hopped up and lay down on on top of my legs and stomach, with his chin on my chest. I wondered why Fluffy liked sleeping that was, and discovered the cat had a perfectly good reason for it, as I couldn't move out from under him and get out f bed without him knowing about it.

Anyway, with the lights out, Fluffy and I went to sleep...it was a warm night, but suddenly I felt an unnatural chill run through me that wasn't pleasant – the closest feeling I could relate to was when Fluffy got hit with a water balloon while he was outside exploring, the wash of cold water splashing over him didn't feel nice, and neither were the chills which came at odd moments. 

Fluffy felt something similar, and ended up crawling under the blanks with me, where I wrapped arms and legs around him for warmth and familiar smell of friend cat keeping the unseen 'things' which lurked in the darkness at bay.

It didn't stop the chills we both shivered through, but it did help us sleep through it until we woke up in the morning, feeling achy and hungry like we'd been running around nonstop. Curiously, my head hurt, and the world didn't feel quite as sharp as it had the day before – like I'd been hit on the head and things had gone back to not quite making as much sense again, though I still remembered and could read well enough.

I had fleeting fading nightmare of Fluffy and I being overrun by metal balls with arms which grabbed us and held us down, and no matter how much we tried to beat them off, there was always more of them as they ripped into our bodies and drank our blood, tore into our stomach and ripped it out, ate our faces and...and...well, it was a good thing it was just a dream, and couldn't hurt us because the nightmare was pretty bad.

Fluffy and I woke up clinging to each other in a sweat, and only let each other go once we sure we were okay.

Nightmares couldn't hurt us...but somehow, it did hurt, because when we got out of bed, our legs were wobbly and our bodies really ached that it hurt moving for a while like they were being used for the first time, that after going to the bathroom, the both of us just hurt badly enough we quietly shuffled to the living room like funny old people, and watched the TV until Grampa woke up.

Yesterday was odd, but I had the feeling today was going to be pretty strange too...because Fluffy and I found we were both seeing stuff that weren't there coming out of the TV....ripples, particles and waves...

I'd like to say it was fascinating like Dr Spock on StarTrek, but the truth was, it was just disturbing.

* * *

The sound of the TV woke Benjamin up, that he briefly recalled the previous day's oddness with his grandson and pet cat whom was seemingly trying to learn how to talk, before finding some relief and consolation that the boy was probably parked in front of the television as normal, watching the morning cartoons if the Rocky and Bullwinckle theme song was anything to go by.

Benjamin felt like an old man as he hauled himself out of bed, and stuck his feet into his slippers. He paused and wondered what the Hell had happened to the hopes and dreams of his youth, that he was now an old enfeebled unemployed divorced man eking out his last days on a government pension.

It wasn't suppose to have been like this, there had been hope of better once, and he'd worked hard for that betterment.

But it had all gone wrong with the arranged marriage to the unfaithful cheating shrew. 

For a time, he'd told himself the lie that everything was going to turn out well, but the evidence mounted up to the point where life was a torture to endure, and he just wanted out...the divorce and the settlement was worth the price gouged out of him, which left him with one small cottage of the properties he'd accumulated through hard work and some meagre savings, but the years squandered in that unholy marriage were lost forever.

Benjamin sighed as he checked in on his grandson and pet cat in the living room, whom were both staring blankly at the cartoons on the black and white TV screen with unfocused glazed eyes...okay, that was absolutely normal for the pair, Benjamin thought as morning greetings were exchanged largely on habit.

Whatever ancestral spirit had temporarily possessed the two yesterday, must've departed the premises to bug some other relative overnight, thought Benjamin with black humour now that things in his household looked have returned to normal, as he made his way to the bathroom and brush his teeth.

Once he'd done attending to the morning hygiene routine, Benjamin checked his grandson again, to find the boy frowning intently at the antics of a Tom and Jerry cartoon with the big orange cat beside him pawing at the air.

“Grampa, do you feel that ?,” Sammy asked in a piping young voice, as he waved his hand in the air in front of him at the TV screen, like he was sweeping away spider webs.

Benjamin glanced at the old fashion vacuum tube TV with raised eyebrow, then gravely advised, “Don't sit too close to the TV, or you'll go blind.”

“Why ?,” Sammy asked, as both he and the cat looked to Benjamin with concern.

Benjamin mentally scrambled for an answer, and was minded of what the TV repairman had said the last time the set had decided to blow a tube, “X-rays. It's why when you wave your hands in front of the screen like that, it looks like it's leaving behind after images.”

“Ah,” Sammy nodded as he waved his hands experimentally again, where the picture on the TV screen distorted briefly like a magnet was pulling or pushing it, before bouncing back, “So that's what it is...I thought it had something to do with magnets effecting the electron gun and the refresh frequency of the cathode ray tube.”

“That too,” Benjamin replied sagely as he beat a retreat to make breakfast, before the boy could ask more awkward questions he couldn't answer, “But sitting too close to the TV is dangerous because of X-rays, okay ?”

“'Kay,” the boy replied affirmatively as he gingerly retreated from the TV, which was displaying the violently psychopathic antics of the cartoon mouse visiting dismemberment, crushing and other otherwise fatal injuries on the cat.

Bright boy, Benjamin thought as he went to the kitchen, musing that Sammy obvious didn't get much of his intelligence from his father. Or maybe the Sung fortunes and luck simply skipped a generation or two, and the boy was simply the lucky recipient of smarts which had thus far been lacking.

* * *

Fluffy had kept his mouth shut thus far, largely because he hurt all over and moved like a geriatric cat pushing thirty rather than his actual three. Pain was everywhere, including his jaw where the trials of shaping human words made it feel like his mouth was going to go numbed totally from the muscles spasms.

It was all Fluffy could do, to gingerly amble to the kitchen for breakfast, and get his mouth move properly enough to eat.

Sammy was in a similar amount of hurt when he moved about, but his usual energetic youthful constitution appeared to be weathering the effects better. Grampa Sung had certainly noticed, but a cursory check for temperature or other superficial signs of sickness, had not been conclusive enough that a doctor had been called to render a diagnosis for a more serious malady.

Rather, it had just been assumed by Grampa Sung after no overt signs of fever were found, that Sammy was just feeling under the weather from running around too much which any normal four year old would suffer from, and perhaps coming down with a mild cold according to the 'light' chills he'd mentioned...but it wasn't serious enough to go to the expense of seeing a doctor.

Or a Vet, Fluffy shuddered grimly, the spectre of whom loomed greatly in the back of the big orange cat's thoughts. He liked his stones just where they were – firmly attached to the rest of him, and no human quack was going to touch his marbles if he was awake, and had a paw in preventing them from being played with.

So, Fluffy was quite grateful that Sammy was taking one for the team, distracting Grampa Sung from noticing the family cat was also feeling under the weather and moving around like some old fart on his last legs, that the cat managed to keep his head down, eat and make a few concessional meows before escaping further scrutiny after breakfast to the backyard, while Sammy was exiled back to bed to rest...it was good being a cat.

It was a nice day outside, warmish – good cat friendly weather.

Fluffy moved out to the pomegranate tree, and ignore his aches and pains as he stiffly climbed up onto his favourite branch amidst the fruit, which let him have a convenient let him a cat's eye view of the backyard, and settled down to doing what cats do best...put their worries on hold, relax, and lightly doze in the warmth of the sun while listening to the pleasant gentle breeze softly rustle the leaves.

After a few hours working on his vitamin D intake which isn't really strictly necessary for a cat, Fluffy was woken up by something prodding to his senses. Open opening his eyes to see what the intrusion was, the cat suddenly sprang alert and found himself twisting his head around in all directions trying to look at the transparent bars of strange scrolling alien script which he realised had suddenly appeared on the top, bottom and sides of his peripheral vision.

For all he knew, they might have been there all along, just out of sight...but there was an icon on the bottom bar which was now pulsing dimly, which was what had attracted his attention once he woke from his light dozing. Fluffy squinted at the icon and...

“Fluffy ?”

The cat stiffened at the familiar piping young voice in his head, and just managed to avoid the indignity of falling out of the tree.

“Sam,” the big orange cat replied, more in thought than vocalising which came out as an annoyed rumble.

“Hey, this is cool – I can see out of your eyes !”

Fluffy blinked as he glanced around furtively at inadvertently being exposed on his perch, then focused his thoughts on his human caretaker, to find himself sitting in bed in the bedroom with a book on his lap, and human prehensile hands with thumb turning the pages.

“I see...what did you do this time ?”

“It's Magic, Fluffy !,” came the mental reply of an excited young boy as the cat found himself looking at the cover of the book through the boy's eyes, reading the ominous title 'Witchcraft, Wiccans and Magic', “Those ripples we saw coming from the TV, it's Power.”

The word 'Power' was spoken with a hushed reverent awe, that Fluffy felt his self preservation instincts jump before settling down with a new foreboding wariness. After a moment's silence in which the big orange cat scratched his chin absently while thinking, “Sure, it's Power – comes out of a electric socket and gives nasty shocks if you stick your nose in one. I know that, been there and got zapped. So What ?”

On hindsight, Fluffy thought privately about the nebulous memory of the close call when he was younger and dumber, it had been a good thing the old fuse had blown along with TV set and the lights in the house when his curiosity had gotten the better of him, or he wouldn't be sitting in the pomegranate tree now.

“No no no, it's not that kind of power, it's Magic Power. Look, Witches have cat familiars – and you're a cat, so that makes You my Familiar, see ?,” pages were flipped and Fluffy found himself reading the text on Familiars with a certain bemusement through the boy's eyes, “And I can do Magic, so that means I'm a Witch.”

“The last time I checked in the bath last night, you had the wrong kind of plumbing to qualify,” Fluffy remarked back sardonically as he looked around the tree, to ascertain nobody else had seen him up on the branch, “Unless you're planning to visit a Vet, and have some bits snipped off.”

“Ow, no. That's just wrong, and sick, cat. Look, turn your head left – see that big pomegranate fruit ?”

Fluffy looked at the big ripe pomegranate whose seeds had already began to burst out of the fruit, “?”

“Watch this, I've been experimenting with those ripples. It's Magic !”

Fluffy felt the energy well up inside him and mutate into 'waves' directed at the pomegranate, and blinked just as the fruit spontaneously exploded in sweet red cough syrupy juice and juicy red seeds in his face. 

The cat didn't even have time to react, getting the full brunt of the splash plastering the left side of his head as he jerked back. By the time he opened his eyes again, the damage to his feline pride was done as he blinked away the juice dripping down his face and whiskers, and calmly wiped the red juice dripped off his furred nose and cheek with his left paw, licked some of the juice from his splattered muzzle then picked off a piece of the shell of the fruit off his right ear, twitched his left ear which had been facing the fruit as a few random seeds fell out of the cavity.

“Errr...whoops. Hahaha – sorry ?”

“Sam,” Fluffy bared his fangs at the indignity, impressing his thoughts into the mental distance reply which conveyed that he did not appreciate feline sense of proprietary being insulted, “Getting a face full of juice is NOT a magical experience. Not happy. Get out of my head.”

“Okay, bye, sorry. Speak to you later.”

And then the annoying sense of presence Fluffy had felt, withdrew and was gone.

There was a few moments where Fluffy washed his face of the cough syrupy tasting pomegranate juices. The cat looked at the potentially explody juicy red seeded fruit surrounding him, with a new sense of paranoia, then decided he was just too exposed out there on the branch, and climbed down the tree to go back into the house...really, sometimes a cat just can't get any peaceful alone time with the apes in the background causing a scene.

* * *


	3. Having a Cat

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Aside from his grandson feeling a little unwell, Benjamin Llewellyn Sung was feeling reassured that the events of the previous two days were just an aberration, to the normality of life as an elderly Asian man living in the Sydney western suburbs of the 70s.

The cat had stopped trying to talk, and Sammy hadn’t needed to go see a doctor as the boy wasn’t even running a temperature, to warrant a diagnosis from a doctor to prescribe medicine...money in the bank, really. Benjamin didn’t need a costly doctor to come and prescribe the panacea of ‘Bex aspirin, water and sleep’.

Life in the western suburbs was firmly working class, and while there were still prejudices lurking from those narrow minded clinging to the vestiges of the defunct White Australia policy, which had been steadily dismantled from 1949 till just last year in 1973, Benjamin felt that his grandson would have far more opportunities than he did in this changing Australia.

Despite the losses and disappointments his life had undergone in recent times, Benjamin was grateful that he had at least lived long enough to meet his grandson whom he treasured. It wasn’t a bad culmination to his life, and while it hadn’t been the best life with a myriad of missed opportunity and mistakes...it was far from the worst.

Sammy was in bed and reading some books in between sleeping when he’d checked in on the boy to see how he was doing, keeping his grandson hydrated with water and the last of the orange juice. The memory of the family cat demanding orange juice yesterday, had made Benjamin ponder on the bizarre event which he’d privately dismissed as a one off encounter with some kind of errant ancestral spirit, whom had since vacated possessing the cat and departed to bug some other relative.

While Benjamin hadn’t really seriously believed in such entities, he hadn’t disbelieved they existed either, that hedging bets going through the motions of following the religious forms of ancestral worship had at least been practiced. In some ways, after he’d calmed down from the unnatural encounter with the supernatural, Benjamin had reflected and felt honoured that he’d been privileged that his latent beliefs had been given some substance if not confirm, before passing from the mortal coil.

By the time noon had crept around without anything much happening, Benjamin began preparing for the late lunch which also served as an early dinner. Two meals a day, a large breakfast and an early dinner seemed to fit in the household’s rhythm, as Sammy was usually too busy running around a playing with Fluffy the Cat to bother with eating a solid lunch.

Wasted food was a cost on the household budget, and while it wasn’t that critical with Benjamin’s son running a restaurant, Benjamin really hated to ask for handouts if things should fall short. In a sense, Sammy’s parents leaving the boy with him to take care of, was also an excuse to give Benjamin food he otherwise couldn’t have afforded, or would have skimped on.

Given that Sammy wasn’t feeling well, Benjamin decided upon an easily digestible soup. His eyes fell upon the box of ‘instant’ Nissin Ramen he’d received from the restaurant, which hadn’t worked out on the menu and been ditched for a higher quality and more substantial traditional egg noodle.

Benjamin was not a fan of ‘instant’ noodles, or rather, the salty sachets of undetermined powders that were passed off by the manufacturers as herbs. It was bad enough that the ‘noodles’ cooked within two to five minutes, but throwing in a sachet of salt and calling it a soup stock, was just wrong...also, it was too disgustingly salty.

While Benjamin grudgingly used the noodles despite his suspicions of their blocky dried desiccated means of manufacture, the salt sachets found their rightful place in the bin. Carrots, tomatoes and potatoes, onion, eggs, diced meat and chicken were taken from the fridge, as Benjamin set about preparations peeling, cutting and dicing to make a healthy stew under a slow simmer, to get everything to melt together without having to keep close eye on things. Some pepper to add a little bit of bite, and it was just a matter of boiling the noodles, draining and serving with the stew...all nice and healthy.

The only ‘instant’ about the whole effort, was the noodles – which Benjamin would have used something of better quality, if he had it on hand.

With the stew simmering away, Benjamin had some time to himself when the cat came inside.

“Fluffy !,” Benjamin gasped upon laying eyes on the cat’s facial injuries, the red dyeing his mottled pumpkin orange fur implied he’d been in a fight at first glance. Benjamin hastily rushed over to the big cat whom had come through the cat door and hopped up onto the counter and moved over to kitchen sink after giving him a cursory glance at the exclamation, “Who did this to...”

Fluffy glanced at the two taps on the kitchen sink, then selected the red tap which he placed both forepaws upon as he turned it in the right direction counter clockwise, to obtain a stream of hot water then doing the same with the blue tap then waved his right paw under the stream whilst looking at Benjamin with an inscrutable ‘Don’t want to talk about it’ amber green feline warning stare.

“You’re not hurt,” Benjamin said after a moment examining the unresisting cat, noting there weren’t any cuts on the orange cat’s fluffy features after he reached out and carefully parted the cat’s fur for signs of injury.

“Hrrrm,” Fluffy said in a decidedly disgruntled fashion as he shrugged himself free of Benjamin’s hands.

With the water having reached a warm temperature the cat found tolerable, Fluffy stuck his head under the stream and the ‘wounds’ washed off completely as his paws rubbed his face and gave himself a ‘cat’ bath, before switching off both taps when he was finished.

An unnerved Benjamin stood still and watched this unnatural comprehension of cause and effect with jaundiced eyes, as the fluffy cat then pulled off one of the chequered hand towels from the rack and dried his matted fur, before draping the cloth around his neck and hopped off the kitchen sink onto his hind paws, where he then ‘walked’ human fashion out of the kitchen...

“Damn,” Benjamin pursed his lips, with a case of the mild shakes in the hands he’d been touching the cat with, “It’s back.”

After a pause, Benjamin cautiously looked out the kitchen to find the cat disappearing into his grandson’s room where the animal slept, where he heard Sammy exclaim in surprise.

“Hey, that’s so cooool, you’re walking – ow, Fluffy ! Stop hitting me with that towel.”

Well, Benjamin thought as he took a deep calming breath, at least the cat wasn’t trying to seriously hurt the boy.

* * *

I wasn’t sick.

But it seemed like a good idea to humour my Grampa who though I wasn’t well, so I stayed in bed and napped a bit after breakfast. I did feel a bit achy all over, so there might have been something to Grampa’s prognosis that it was some kind of mild virus bug I needed rest to recover from.

The thing is, there’s only so much sleeping you can do, before staying in bed becomes boring.

So I’d snuck out to the library, got a few books, and went back to bed to quietly read...the book about dinosaurs was mildly interesting, though there was a nagging sensation the pictures were somehow wrong, and the bipedal ones should have looked like giant chickens...well, maybe it was all that stuff I’d read in the encyclopaedia sinking into the subconscious that was messing with me?

Anyway, the dinosaurs I think I once found so fascinating, somehow didn’t seem very relevant when I picked up the second book called ‘Witches, Wiccans and Magic’. Now, reading this began as more of an effort to kill time till dinner, without any expectation of reading anything useful until some of the coincidences I was reading about started merging into a pattern.

With something resembling a direction to experiment given the hints in the book, I began playing with those new senses which I’d discovered this morning...who knew, it was tiring to stretch those mental muscles, but I got to the point of figuring out how to make electricity in my hands...once I got that far, a plasma ball was child’s play.

Neat – but then I remembered Grampa’s warning about playing with fire, and prudently put that line of experimenting on hold as I read the book for more stuff I could do, without potentially setting fire to my bedroom.

And then I found it.

Cat. Familiar.

The book suggested I could do all kinds of neat stuff, using Fluffy like a remote controlled toy.

How ?...Well, I had time on my hands, and nothing else to do than think hard. I mean, close my eyes and really concentrate thinking at Fluffy hard enough to get a headache, the afterimage of a blob which made me look round with my eyes closed when I noticed the bars of strange transparent script in my peripheral vision.

I opened my eyes, and the script didn’t go away from the sides of peripheral vision now i knew they were there...that’s when I began ‘poking’ at them in my mind, and discovered there were lists behind the symbols. What’s more, after a bit more headachy concentration, I sort of ‘knew’ what the symbols and lists meant.

Concentrating on one, it was surprisingly easy for me to ‘connect’ with the cat’s location in an odd way like I’d ‘floated’ out of the bedroom and through the windows facing the backyard where I knew the cat was...and I just hovered there and studied the sleeping cat, slowing moving around him and trying out other modes of ‘Seeing’.

Cool, even had a kind of X-ray vision – I could see the fluids moving around inside Fluffy, the beating of his heart, the expansion and retraction of his lungs breathing, the electrical flashes in his muscles and brain which told me he was a living being...oh, and the kind of difference between a living thing as a cat, and the tree he was sleeping in...I spent a few more fascinating moments hugging the tree to discern the different quality of ‘life’ between fauna and flora, when Fluffy woke up and sucked me in.

Quite suddenly, I was both in my bed, and in the tree inside Fluffy’s head...and then Fluffy was inside my head with me in my bed.

Well, I told him what I found in the book I was read, after he calmed down, and explained my suspicions of what I’d thought I was according to the coincidental information about witches, especially the one about witches and cats, and them being ‘connected’ just like Fluffy and I demonstrably were that we could see out of each other’s eyes.

And the clincher – I could use his body, a kind of ‘possession’ which witches are supposed to do with their Familiars they’ve made contact with.

I hadn’t really expected the pomegranate to blow up in his face when I ‘pushed’ a plasma ball at it, and grossly underestimate the amount of energy plasma contained. Probably just as well I’d stopped playing with it in bed, as I watched Fluffy pick bits of pomegranate seeds out of his ears before he told me to get out of his head.

I didn’t stick around the cat, and suddenly I was back in my body again and feeling excited and weird at discovering I could ‘feel’ the new capability on an instinctive level without concentrating hard, now I’d played with it some.

I was exploring that other fascinating thing which witches are said to possess called levitation, or ‘flying’, when Fluffy came in and saw me floating a few centimetres above the bed, where he freaked and had a cat as he started hitting me with a wet towel...not sure what he was thinking, but people do odd things when they’re having a panic attack.

It took a long petting session for Fluffy to calm down, and agreed to take part supervising future experimental sessions as I explored our fascinating new ‘Witch’ abilities.

* * *


	4. Discovering why Witches are Girls

...Australia...Earth...1974...

(Warning - graphic descriptions of violence, sensitive males beware)

The dark red brick Federation era cottage was quite in the silence of the night, disturbed only by the random creaks and pops from different construction materials settling onto decades old foundations from the effects of thermal expansion and retraction caused by the sun, which had opened up cracks and fissures over the decades that allowed rodents and scuttling pests to enter and cause those sensitive to such disturbances chronic insomnia.

Just saying, it wasn’t that quiet – there’s a lot going on in the background, which human sensitivities don’t include as part of their perception of ‘normal’.

Well, it was dark and mostly quiet night, as an eldritch shadow slowly moved towards its destination, the rounded nose of a long thin meter and a half shape which flared out into a truncated flat foot length bristled body, menacingly glided through the lightless corridors of the Sung household with an unnatural smooth predatory grace.

It slowly flowed over the ground beneath it without making a sound, nor disturbing so much as a single fibre of carpet to mark its passage through the corridor from its usual lair in the supply closet...until it came to an obstacle in the form of a bedroom door, and...

Bump...bump...bump...

There was a pause as the thing which went bump in the night stopped moving forth.

The bedroom door cracked opened as a pair of reflective eyes set in a furred face peered out to scrutinise the gently bopping intruder, whose hard nose had knocked against the wooden barrier of the bedroom door panel which barred its path.

Fluffy opened the bedroom door, to allow the straw broomstick to enter the bedroom, and quickly close the door behind the household cleaning implement as the bristles of straw cleared the bedroom’s threshold, where it settle gracefully onto the parquetry and came to a rest without so much as a clatter.

Sammy sighed as he broke concentration and opened his eyes, then smiled brightly to find the broom he’d navigated from the supply closet, resting on the floor of his bedroom, “Maaad.”

“Huh,” Fluffy said as the big fluffy orange cat crouched on all fours, suspiciously sniffed at the now inert broom for signs of inanimate life before cautiously batting the broom with a paw for good measure.

“Witch Powers are Mad,” the excited boy affirmed in a loud whisper as he scrambled off the bedcovers over where he’d been sitting, taking a moment to tie knot the kitty motif pillow case around his neck in a makeshift cape, and pattered over to the broomstick on bare feet where the caped boy looked up and down it’s length, before standing astride it as he urgently motioned the cat sniffing at the straw bristles to join him, “Come on Fluffy, this is going to be an awesome life experience !”

Fluffy looked up, puffed out a feline sigh, then stood up as he walked up behind the boy over whom he now loomed, standing astride over the broom and placed his tawny orange tufted paws on the boy’s pillowcase caped shoulder, “Mew.”

A grinning excited Sammy took a deep excited breath as he extended his hand as if to grasp something, and mentally pictured the broomstick leaping into his waiting hand.

Learning experiences are life’s way of teaching the fundamentals of cause and effect, with a little bit of practical physics, and a smathering of applying past knowledge to reflect and try better the next time...if there is one.

The broomstick, did in fact leap up toward’s Sammy’s expectant open hand.

It’s just, the first thing the hard Australian wood handle encountered, were a pair of orange furred dice.

This caused a chain of catastrophic events, as the orange furred dice was attached to one unsuspecting orange fluffy cat whom despite standing taller than the boy he loomed over, the junction of his hind legs actually stood lowered to the ground.

Strong biochemical chemical reactions fired up and raced along nerve endings, which if one could see the bio-electrical pulse radiating from the two furry orbs, resembled the roots of a tree diagram that lit up like a Christmas tree, until it reached the peanut sized brain.

Which, then came alive as it flared brightly in reaction to the stimuli...the allusion resembled one of those carnival tropes, where one rings a bell with a weight by smashing down with a mallet on a seesaw mechanism.

However, there wasn’t so much as a ‘Ding’ or a ‘Tilt’, as a male wincing ‘Smack with hint of eye watering ‘Crunch’ as orange furred dice temporarily distorted and flattened in shape with a disturbing fluid bouncy wobbling effect.

“Rowr !?!”

The cat went rigid as jaws clacked shut in an involuntary grin, round bulging felines eyes strained at the kind of existential pain only a male would understand, his claws springing out at an instinctive level at the existential threat to continued malehood, as stiff hind paws left the ground from the applied upward force applied to the meeting junction...the extended claws clamped down, digging through pillow case, pyjamas and into boy flesh, which then caused a lapse in concentration in the other party at the scene.

The distraction was sufficient for the boy to miss catching the broomstick handle, which now impacted another pair of dice, where a similar sequence of events as occurred to the cat was repeated.

“Meep !?!”

Sammy’s feet left the ground under the motive force of the broomstick handle between his stiffened rigid legs he was now sitting astride on, any semblance of control gone as the rise of the broomstick faltered then fell, dropping both males back on their feet and hind paws where they stood rigidly a scant moment.

The deadly broomstick, bereft of guidance, clattered on the parquetry.

Then the motor control which allowed both males to continue standing a brief moment, abruptly collapsed as tears sprang unbidden where both boy and cat reached for the source of their existential pain, collapsing and curling in foetal positions as they cupped the stomach churning agony with hands and paws, whimpering and mewing as just breathing seemed to send new pulses of undesired stimuli, legs bicycling with feeble running motions in a futile attempt to escape the spread of pain radiating out from the source of origin.

Suffice to say, further plans for the evening’s exploratory session into the intricacies of ‘Magic’ were curtailed, and both Sammy and Fluffy clued in why Witches are Female.

* * *


	5. Familiars, Wands and Witchery

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Ever since Awakening, Fluffy has been turning his nose up at the litterbox and using the toilet like a normal person. This is something of a problem, since there’s only one toilet in the house and my usual morning routine is disrupted since Fluffy gets to the toilet first while I’m busting to go...and then when it’s my turn, Fluffy has a disturbing habit of watching intensely while I pee.

It’s a cat thing, interesting smells and that...Fluffy says it’s because he finds a human peeing is about as hilariously interesting to him, as I find the orange furred pervert fascinatingly funny when he contorts himself to lick his balls.

I suppose humans have their quirks too, but it’s odd to think that the cat is staring at you for the potential entertainment value. Come to think of it, that’s a very cat kind of outlook – ugh, enough about the weird quirks of the human condition.

Anyway, I didn’t so much as twinge while going to the bathroom after the traumas of the previous night, which had distanced itself into the background like a bad memory in a similar way you wake up hoping that memory of backing your car into something was really just a bad dream – Grampa did that once coming home at night, and took out the front gates somebody had closed for him while we were out, since we never bother closing them, when he backed down the driveway to the garage in the backyard.

You sort of know something awful happened, but don’t want to remember at the same time.

Shock is like that, I suppose, but putting the broomstick back in the closet got rid of the incriminating evidence something had happened, that we washed up and parked ourselves in front of the black and white boob tube to critique the violent morning cartoons effects on conditioning the development of a child’s mind towards aggressive tendencies in the absence of other less pacifist stimuli, while we waited for Grampa to wake up and make us something to eat.

I suppose I could have made myself a sandwich and poured Fluffy some kitty kibbles, but food tastes so much better when somebody else makes it. It just does, for some reason, and my dim memories of my dad making me learn the basics of how to cook when I was still living at the restaurant with the parents, suggested that making my own food was a one way trip to independence and having to make my own food.

Okay – you may be wondering just why Fluffy and I were living at Grampa’s place.

I have asthma...well, ‘had’ asthma, since the faint oil vapours of food cooking from the extraction fans wafting up around the restaurant’s second floor where I use to live, was enough to gunk up my lungs, to the point where I’d come down constantly with the nastiest coughs. That all cleared up once I’d moved over to Grampa’s place, when the parents caught onto what was making me to be sick all the time.

These days, I only see my parents once a week when Grampa goes to the restaurant to pick up supplies, where I usually get drafted by my dad as unpaid slave labour to ‘help’ doing stuff like shelling and gutting prawns of their spines, where I could be left alone with the task, ugh – a restaurant is no place for a child to grow up, and I can’t stand prawns even if Fluffy seems to like the taste.

After breakfast, Fluffy and I went out to the backyard to ‘play’ – we’d thought about our accident some, and it occurred to us that damaging Grampa’s house if an accident occurred, was a really bad idea since we lived there. Grampa was okay with us in the backyard, and only checked on us every so often from the windows overlooking the yard’s garden and double garage which Fluffy and I had designated our ‘lair’.

The red brick double garage in the back was separate from the house, and my Grampa said that in the old days use to be the attached servant’s quarters with a bedroom facing the pomegranate tree in the backyard, a toilet, and the laundry. It didn’t have a kitchen though, as the servant was expected to prepare meals in the house.

It made for a neat granny flat and workshop, since Grampa only had the one battered Landrover that there was a spare car space on the left side of the garage, where the door to the bedroom and garden was.

Since nobody was living in the garage, I had a key to the garage and the empty bedroom, which Grampa had kept that way for those times when he was working on something in the garage and couldn’t be bothered to come back inside for the night before I came to live with him.

I often used the spare rooms in the garage as a cubby house, where Fluffy and I pretended it was a ‘lair’...or something like that.

Anyway, the garage was proving to be convenient in having a place to experiment out of sight while I was supposedly playing in the garden. The accident with the broomstick yesterday night, had clued me in that Magic could be dangerous, and I really didn’t want an accident to damage Grampa’s house.

* * *

The bamboo chopstick I’d taken from the kitchen, burned merrily as cellulose turned into red glowing carbon and ash where I’d dropped it on the concrete floor of the garage in a hurry.

Fluffy and I just watched as the wood was consumed by fire, the flames reflecting in our eyes until it burned itself out, neither of us moving to douse the fire as we both pictured the mark that would’ve left on the wooden parquetry on my bedroom floor, if we hadn’t moved our experimenting over to the garage.

“That happened,” Fluffy said in a squeaky high pitched girlish voice as he sniffed at the smoke. The facial muscles around his mouth seemed to have become more flexible and mobile overnight, that we’d discovered he could actually speak properly now after migrating over to the garage – he’d been making funny faces at himself in the mirror and practicing enunciation, before I said he was acting more like a monkey than a cat which calmed him down, “So much for the wand.”

I was okay with Fluffy being able to ‘talk’ after the initial surprise at finding his pronunciation had improved so much, but I could already ‘hear’ him speaking inside my head anyway, so it wasn’t really that much of a shock as a pleasant surprise.

This whole witch thing isn’t working out, is it,” I mused, rubbing my mouth at the close call to possibly setting my bedroom on fire, which at least made me feel better that I’d moved thing out to the garage. Levitating wood and other objects had become blasé with familiarity, where I’d moved onto that other implement other than the cat Familiar witches are supposed to have.

A Wand.

I’d dispensed with the, cape since Fluffy had used the pillowcase I’d been using as a substitute to climb over my back to get into bed yesterday, when he found he couldn’t get off all fours or jump because of the ache. The only consolation was that once Fluffy was on the bed, his bushy orange tail had made a convenient handle for me to haul myself up, since I had similar problems with not being able to lift my legs high enough to get onto the bed because it just sent new pains migrating around my groin.

The witch’s hat was just tacky, and I didn’t have one on hand anyway.

“So much for the wand,” I said as I consulted the book I’d been using for a guide – it was irritatingly scant on details, but I figured that if anyone could grasp what the book was trying to get at, the world would be overflowing with witches, “This Earth, Water, Air and Fire business doesn’t make a great deal of sense, they aren’t even elements.”

Fluffy hopped up on the workbench in the garage I’d placed the book on, paused as he looked at the diagram in the book depicting the ancient elements of ‘Magic’ – which didn’t gel with the information about elements I’d read in the Encyclopaedia Britannica so far, after Fluffy and I discovered how to speed read and that we could ‘share’ information between us that we’d taken to reading separate volumes to get through them faster.

“That’s because,” Fluffy said after a contemplative pause studying the tip of his twitching plushy tail, “It isn’t describing ‘elements’, so much as states of matter. Replace Earth with solid. Water with liquid. Air for gas, and Fire with...oh, plasma. Better?”

I cocked my head in thought at the observation, pressed my lips together with a frown as I tried to make sense of that in the context of the information in the book...it was like the writer had been drawing on third hand observations, that they didn’t really have a clue what was going on themselves.

Quite possibly true, seeing as the Church had a habit of setting people on fire with their religious beliefs.

It made sense that you’d hardly expect any self respecting witch to come out in the open to enlighten the religious mugs, not with the prospect of front row seats at the Church sponsored bonfire.

“So...it’s an euphemism, not an actual description,” I thought aloud as the concept of layers of hidden meanings occurred to me after Fluffy’s revelation, “So this Wiccan wand is supposedly meant to symbolise ‘elemental’ air and sometimes fire...gas and plasma.”

“You popped that pomegranate pod in my face, using similar principles,” Fluffy reminded me with a half lidded look, “Energetic plasma transferring into solid medium of a pomegranate pod, converting a portion of it temporarily into gas which expanded explosively before liquefying back into pomegranate juice to achieve a stable state.”

“Sorry about that,” I’d accidentally discovered that I could induce a gaseous ‘plasma’ effect from using concentrated ‘micro’ waves as a means of concentrating energy yesterday. I’d been more interested in the ‘texture’ of the different gases in the air being excited into different colours yesterday, than the actual applications I could use it for – levitating the broomstick had been a one off frivolous exercise of applying plasma and energy, and I really hadn’t thought through it much.

“Meh, not the first time somebody’s thrown a water bomb at me,” Fluffy replied nonchalantly, as he watched me avidly.

Still...Solid, Liquid, Gas and Plasma, hmmm.

No way was any stick of wood going to survive those changes in state, you needed something inert just to avoid spontaneously reacting with anything. Absently, I began fiddling with the gases in the air with my new senses – carbon and oxygen in the form of Carbon Dioxide, paired Oxygen molecules, paired Nitrogen along with various Nitrous Oxide compounds and sulphur – ugh, pollutants, Argon...Argon ?

I blinked at the purple haze I’d absently collected in my musing through the elements in the air.

“Argon,” I sat up straighter, as I concentrated on shepherding the excited wispy vapours of purple coloured gas I’d separated out of the atmosphere. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Argon was the fourth most abundant gas in the atmosphere at just 0.93%, which is probably why I was able to latch onto it, “It’s inert.”

“Um, unless you haven’t noticed, it’s a gas,” Fluffy said as he oozed back from the concentrating gas, which began to glow a very distinct purple hue as it concentrated in the air of the garage, “Not the kind of material a wand would be made out of.”

“The book was right,” I said as I stepped underneath the coalescing gases and reached out as if to grasp the condensing glowing wisps, “Earth, Water Air and Fire aren’t meant to be interpreted literally, because ‘This’, is Air.”

I made a motion as if to grip a handle, while picturing what I wanted the vibrations and ripples to push the condensing Argon gas vapours began collapsing inwards according to the image I had in my mind’s eye.

“And ‘This’, is Fire,” the gases rushed in and seemingly solidified into a 20cm purple rod of vaporous light – my control over the Argon gas wasn’t perfect since molecules had a habit of escaping, but the picture in my mind helped a lot in terms of control as I wave the bar of purple Argon gases experimentally whilst picturing it sprouting a few centimetres from my flesh so I wouldn’t get burned, “A Witch’s Wand.”

“Yeaaah...nope, I think you got the wrong genre,” Fluffy said, paw on his mouth, “That definitely looks like a sword. Trust me, I’ve been chased by enough brats waving sticks around the neighbourhood who think they’re Errol Flynn, to know the difference.”

I’m a four year old in the 70s – wizards weren’t exactly readily available images on TV, as opposed to pirates and swashbucklers. The ‘Wand’ warped and elongated to a more readily identifiable image which an impressionable young child of my age would find appealing.

Thrumm, thrummm...

“Okay...this works too,” I grinned widely at the now meter long purple ‘blade’, looking around the garage for something to test it on, “I don’t know why Hollywood hasn’t gotten around to making movies with this trope, it’s just so cool.”

“Give it time,” Fluffy said gravely, waving me off from getting too close with the purple pig sticker, “Just give it time.”

* * *

Biomass Reactor...Online.

Power resources nominal.

Neural capacity nominal.

Nanite resources nominal.

Emergency Survival Protocols active.

Genetic conversion of host organisms to Alteran Standards...Authorised.

...legions of tiny machines scuttled through blood and arteries...

* * *

“I’m getting tired just watching you waving that thing,” Fluffy complained from where he was lying on the bench, “Are you sure those fumes are safe to breath? It’s giving me a headache.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said as my purple Wand sword winked out in a haze of dissipating energised Argon gases bleeding off their charge as I felt a sudden crash of tired wariness, “This, is stupidly draining, and probably dangerous in ways I haven’t considered yet – I think I need to lie go down a bit.”

“Most intelligent thing you’ve said all morning,” Fluffy hopped off the bench, “Come on, lets close up here and surprise Grampa with the talking cat shtick before hitting the sack. I’m pretty sure all the Argon you’ve been concentrating in the garage is causing oxygen deprivation.”

That actually made sense, and explained the sudden headache I was feeling – sleeping it off sounded like a good idea, as I closed the garage and left to follow Fluffy back to the house where he could surprise Grampa...hopefully, without causing a heart attack.

On second thoughts, I thought as I ran after the orange fur ball, maybe it was best if the cat just kept his trap shut until I could break it to Grampa lightly – after a much needed nap, of course. Playing with Magic was more tiring that I thought it would be - maybe it was just like a muscle which hadn't been used for a long time ?

* * *


	6. Does Alteran Conversion mean becoming a Pod Person ?

...Australia...Earth...1974...

The term ‘exponential’ growth is not readily comprehensible to the human mind, anymore than ‘logarithmic’ growth is.

For instance, if you have one vampire who bites another and turns that person into a vampire too, and they have to feed every day, then the population of vampire doubles every day. This might not seem like a significant problem to the human mind at first glance, because human minds don’t readily digest the reality of exponential growth...but, for the exercise, let us calculate just how many vampires there would be on planet Earth after just 30 days if the population doubles every day.

On day two, the two vampires feed and there would be four vampires. On day three, four hungry vampires crawl out and there would be eight by the end of the day. Day four, those eight will become sixteen, day five 32, day six 64, day seven 128, day eight 256, day nine 512, day ten 1024, day eleven 2048, day twelve 4096, day thirteen 8192, day fourteen 16,384.

By the halfway mark of 30 days, day fifteen sees 32,768 hungry vampires wandering around looking for a victim which doesn’t seem so bad and controllable – but this is where human comprehension breaks down and starts mining nose gold because people generally suck at math.

Day sixteen there is 65536, day seventeen 131,072, day eighteen 262,144, day nineteen 524,288, day twenty 1,048,576, day twenty one 2,097,152, day twenty two 4,194,304, day twenty three 8,388,608, day twenty four 16,777,216, day twenty five 33,554,432, day twenty six 67,108,864, day twenty seven 134,217,728, day twenty eight 268,435,456, day twenty nine 536,870,912…and by day thirty, 1,073,741,824.

Yes, in just 30 days, one vampire has become more than a billion, just by doubling every day…which kind of hints that vampires don’t exist, or not in the way popular human horror and myth likes to portray the breed since Earth would have been overrun by vampires long ago, and we ‘Vampires’ would be telling tales about how we exterminated those other Humans in the distant past simply through fucking our neighbours over and doubling the population every few generations, and how we became the…dominant…species…

Well, maybe the vampires did win after all.

But yes, exponential growth is what the nanites did when they initially deployed, and started constructing the support structures necessary to start the full body genetic conversion of their hosts after just a few days stockpiling the necessary materials to do so. There were in fact, quite a lot of nanites wandering around through Fluffy and Sammy by that time, the neural net allowing command and control of such numbers whilst the newly constructed biomass reactor providing them the energy to carry out their task of converting body tissue in s sustained manner, which had been somewhat marginal relying on mere bio-chemical energy, that the tasks had occurred in bursts when the boy and cat had been sleeping the past few days.

Now, what occurred next is an example of logarithmic ‘growth’, or rather, ‘decay’ as nanites began attacking and converting human tissue and organs, expending themselves in the act of transforming biological matter at a genetic level where their depleted husks were carried off for disposal. The conversion occurred very rapidly initially, but then began to slow down and level off as nanites depleted, and unconverted tissue shrank to the point where even without nanites actively replacing them, the other converted organs had reached a critical mass that those tissues would have been replaced through purely natural biological processes in time anyway.

The conversion was very fast…the two unsuspecting victims never even realized they’d ‘died’ as terrestrial science understood the concept, and then been ‘Resurrected’ as their souls were stuffed back into a corporeal existence before they could depart the scene and float off somewhere.

It only took a few hours for the conversion to complete, and the victims slumbered through the fact they’d become ‘pod persons’. Upon waking up fresh and ache free from their nap with only an odd fading dream, there was a feeling something was very off, but neither Fluffy or Sammy were quite able to identify what was out of place...and then the Horror started...

* * *

...Merrrrow...MrrrrreOw...Mrowwww...meOoooW...Merrrow...Mrrrrrrrrow...

Fluffy and I woke up by the cat noises, to find a mob of cats pawing insistently at the glass panes of the French doors which led out to the ground floor balcony. Cats of all colours and sizes had climbed over the low brick wall onto the balcony which they now filled, and were milling about like a sea of fur looking for a way in.

“Er, friends of yours ?,” I asked Fluffy, whom had crawled under the covers with me, which he habitually did when feeling insecure or threatened when it wasn’t cold enough to do so for warmth.

I sat up and Fluffy bounced out of bed to cautiously approach the strange cats at the door.

“Never seen them in my life,” Fluffy replied defensively as paws scrabbled on glass at his appearance, then some of the cats turned around and thrust their behind firmly on the glass panes with furry thumps at Fluffy. More of the cats turned around, and plaster the French doors with furry behinds with tails held high and frenzied mrowing upon Fluffy’s appearance, “This is like something out of that horror movie, ‘The Birds’, except with cats.”

...MRRRROOOOW-MEEEEERROOR-MEEEOOOOWWW-RRROOOOOOWRRRR !...

“Oh...but they look like they want to be friends,” I observed speculatively. A cat turning their back on you is catspeak for trust, but Fluffy backed off from the French doors warily, “Aren’t you going to say hello to them ?”

Fluffy turned his head to me, “Sam. They’re Pussies – they don’t want to be just friends.”

Some of the cats outside showing their behinds to Fluffy and I, looked over their shoulders to see whether Fluffy was buying their displays of affection. Fluffy on the other hand, just looked intimidated as he suddenly retreated back behind me as soon as my feet landed on the ground – this seemed to antagonise the cats outside whom suddenly surged against the doors as they climbed over each other, which rattled under their weight.

“I think,” I said as I backed away to the bedroom door at the mass of desperate multi-coloured furred female flesh outside on the balcony, tried to get inside the house, “We better leave.”

Fluffy backed off using me as a shield, facing the existential threat as the female mob outside began screaming in frenzy as claws came out when they saw their prize escaping.

-RROOOOOOWWWR-OOOOORRROOOOOR- MRRRRRRROOOOOOOWW !!!!...

I quickly shut the bedroom door and slumped against it, as Fluffy let out the breath he’d been holding after the French doors began creaking ominously at the swarming cats outside pushing against it. The door was another barrier to the furry mob outside, whom seemed to have gone into a vicious free for all fur ball that erupted out on the ground floor balcony.

“What, just happened ?,” I asked after a few intense moments listening to the cat fight outside die down.

Fluffy paused, then raised his left paw and sniffed under his arm pit, before solemnly declaring, “I need a shower.”

Now that he mentioned it, I hooked a finger under my collar of my top and pulled it out to sniff – the smell of friendly orange cat mixed with something spicy wafted up, in addition to the funky smell of stinky sweaty boy, which suggested I should take a bath.

“Good idea,” I paused a moment to listen to Grampa go out through the kitchen door, and up the side passage outside to the front yard, to investigate what had been causing the commotion, “I think we better wash this funky smell off, before those cats find another way into the house.”

Fluffy and I diverted off to the bathroom where he jumped into the bathtub and adjusted the water to cat and child friendly temperatures, while I stripped off and frowned at the heavy musky stink wafted out from containment. I got the shock of my life the moment I dropped my shorts, and something sprang out which shouldn’t have – I mean, when I’d last gone to the bathroom this morning, it hadn’t been long enough to ‘spring’ with.

Fluffy heard me squawk while playing with the water taps as the gas water heater gradually brought the temperature up, and came over to give my new addition a few curious sniffs, before wrinkling his muzzle as he covered his nose with his paw, “Oh, that just smells...wrong.”

I narrowly avoided a panic attack as I tugged hopefully a few moments as I tried to examine ‘it’, before taking a deep shuddering calming breath and remembered the diagrams in the Encyclopaedia – mine hadn’t looked like the diagram before, of what a boy should look like, but...it did now...which meant, “Puberty sucks.”

The books did say that boys underwent a growth spurt called ‘Puberty’, but somehow, I thought it would take longer to happen than just a few hours. I glared at Fluffy as he made to bat at the newly acquired floppy bits, before checking himself out to find that whatever had hit me had managed to bypass him – which I suppose in cat terms, he was already pretty hung.

Anyway, I hopped into the bath tub and began scrubbing the worst of the stink off once the water had hit a constant warmth, while helping Fluffy get rid of his smell too. The bar of Imperial Leather shrank noticeably as did the bottle of Johnson’s baby shampoo in between rinses, though the sticker on the bar of soap remained glued in place somehow as the suds flew, that I had to clear out stray cat hairs from clogging the drain.

It took a few washes, before the heavy stink on the both of us became tolerable – it was pretty bad now I wasn’t walking around in the clothes I’d slept in. Fluffy helped scrub my back with claws carefully sheathed and using the sponge, as I scrubbed his fur in turn – odd though it sounds for a cat, Fluffy isn’t adverse to water, and I dimly remember him jumping in the bath with me before our Awakening where everything started making sense in a way it hadn’t before.

For some odd reason, I had the odd impression while scrubbing away till I passed Fluffy’s sniff test of approval, I was scouring off the remnants of my humanity. For some odd reason, I just didn’t feel like the ‘me’ whom had gone to bed...I felt, well, oddly excited, like I dimly remember when my dad bought a Holden Kingswood – you know, that ‘new car’ feeling.

Anyway, I dried myself off and help Fluffy dry off with spare bath towels, where we sniffed at each other again to assure ourselves we weren’t emitting any more objectionable problematic odours, before I went off and got dressed while Fluffy played with the hair dryer after figuring out how it worked.

I cracked the door to my bedroom open, to find Grampa was out in the front yard with a broomstick, having chased off the cats that had been on the balcony. The bed, I noticed, still stank to high heavens with the smell we’d been carrying on us – funny how you notice how bad you stink after a bath.

I was going to have to get Grampa to help change the sheets, no way was I going to sleep in that stink, and quickly pulled some clothes on from the drawers.

I paused at Fluffy’s cat basket, which usually went unused...sniffed it thoughtfully, frown a moment before looking over to my bed.

“Hey, Fluffy,” I called to the cat over the whine of the hair dryer as a disconcerting feeling possessed me, by orange furred childhood companion poked his head out the bathroom while holding the hair dryer to his fluffy orange tail, “Come here, I need you to smell something.”

“Sure,” Fluffy said as he shut off the hair dryer, then padded out of the bathroom looking rather more fluffier and fulsome than his usual self, “What do you need ?”

“Is it just me, or do you smell different now than you use to ?,” I asked, pointing to the cat bed, then to my bed we usually both slept in as the cat glanced over to the empty balcony to ascertain the coast was clear, before coming in.

Fluffy poked his nose at the cat bed, inhaled a few moments, then at our bed which he sniffed shallowly with distaste, before looking apprehensive in a way a cat does when intruding on another cat’s turf. He padded over to inhale at my shoes before moving back over to sniff at me.

“No, not you,” Fluffy said finally, ears flat to his skull a moment as he sniffed at the room warily to ascertain his sense of smell wasn’t deceiving him, “I thought it was just the lingering stench clogging my nose, but there’s definitely a new smell hanging on top of ‘us’.”

“Okay...this is starting to scare me a bit,” I sniffed at my armpit on reflex at my suspicions being confirmed by someone with a more sensitive nose than mine, “Not only am I bigger downstairs and my underwear doesn’t fit anymore, but I also smell different.”

“Not ‘different’ different,” Fluffy corrected, as he pawed at the French doors while breathing shallowly, “We still smell like us, just with something more on top.”

“Like that faint spicy smell on you ?,” I asked.

“Metallic,” Fluffy corrected, “It’s coming off you too.”

The both of us looked at out bed, which was drenched in that ‘metallic’ stink – which might have been what had attracted all those cats that had gathered out on the balcony, wanting to get in to the ‘interesting’ new smell.

My own sense of smell was oddly sharper than it had been, that I could discern differences and nuances I couldn’t before. This didn’t mean I understood what those smells meant, though Fluffy poked his nose at me and sniffed away to familiarise himself with the new smelling ‘me’, that had occurred often enough when I came back from visiting my parents at the restaurant, when I brought back a layer of interesting new food smells on my clothes.

What was happening to us ?...or rather, what ‘had’ happened to us while we were out ??

“Hey – Sam, what was that campy movie with people being replaced by replicas we watched recently,” Fluffy ventured, as he squinted at me suspiciously which claws unsheathing from his paws.

“’Invasion of the Body Snatchers’, I fell asleep halfway through it,” I replied blandly, and the cat relaxed a little as the claws receded, “I’m not a pod person, Fluffy.”

“How could you tell ?,” Fluffy asked, squinting at me suspiciously as he sat up and waved his paws at me sinuously like flailing tentacles, “That new porbe is kind of disturbing. Who’s to say I’m not going to wake up one night with that thing trying to get inside me ?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s just a puberty thing,” I wrinkled my nose at the insulting insinuation, “Coming from someone who likes humping my pillow, that’s a bit hypocritical.”

“Nyah, I don’t have disposable thumbs like you apes do, so any pillow I can bite and get to co-operate works,” Fluffy replied with catlike dignity, which gave me an idea and a good alibi to get the sheets and blankets changed.

Oh, first thing first – I threw open the French doors to the balcony to let the stink air out a bit in the afternoon breeze, and got Grampa’s attention whom was chatting to our neighbour, Mrs Stewart, about the ‘cat invasion’ of the front yard that hadn’t gone unnoticed, that my bed sheets and blankets needed changing and washing after Fluffy had an accident in it.

The cat squawked outraged, but otherwise kept his mouth shut since we were in public.

* * *


	7. Catastrophic neighbour

...Australia...Earth...1974...

“Mommy, there are lots and lots of kitties meowing next door!”

Kirsten Stewart had been hearing what sounded like a lot of cats calling from the kitchen when her blonde daughter Bethany rushed in from the backyard green eyes wide with excitement at having encountered something new and unusual, her plastic shovel and pail in hand which she’d been using to explore for worms and other things an inquisitive four year old girl might find interesting in the backyard garden.

The green eyed redhead mother paused thoughtfully at the sounds she’d been ignoring since it started in mid afternoon, the distinct trilling ‘mrowing’ sound of a cat – actually, many cats, in heat, “I wonder what that’s all about.”

“Can I go to the front yard and look at the kitties?,” Bethany asked, hopping with excitement.

“I suppose we should,” Kirsten said with a frown, glancing at the gas oven she’d been keeping an eye on where she was baking a cake – it wouldn’t be done for another twenty minutes yet, untying her apron strings as she assured her excited daughter, “There’s probably a good explanation for all that noise.”

“Hurry, Mommy! The kitties might run away!,” Bethany hopped urgently, darting back and forth as Kirsten hung up her apron and headed to the front door with her daughter.

No sooner had Kirsten opened the front door, than Bethany rushed out with a delighted squeal to the wooden lattice which separated the property from the Sung household’s front yard. Kirsten gasped at the cats of all colours and sizes running amok on the lawn of the neighbour’s front yard, and crowding onto the ground floor balcony where they seemed to be congregating in an incessant mrowing chorus.

“Hey, Kirsten, what’s going on with the Sungs?,” Charlotte Daniels, the Sung’s other neighbour whom had also come out to investigate the commotion, asked as she navigated the errant cat whom hadn’t jumped over the low brown brick fence and tall shrubs which separated the pavement from the front yard, “Is there a rodent infestation?”

“I don’t know, Charlotte,” Kirsten admitted to the divorced brunette haired mother of two teenage daughters, whom she often spent time talking to. A laughing squealing Bethany amused herself chasing the cats whom had strayed onto their yard, before they made their escape hopping over the lattice fence over to the Sung’s yard where they joined the mrowing furry mob, “This is highly peculiar, isn’t it?”

“Peculiar? This is a scene out of that horror movie, ‘The Birds’,” the opinionated bossy brunette declared arbitrarily over the singing cats, “I should call the Council before these pesky creatures begin attacking people.”

It wasn’t, Kirsten thought, a bad idea – though it might cause issues with the reclusive old man Sung, whom she seldom spoke much to beyond brief greetings when she saw him doing some gardening. In fact, ever since she and her husband Gregory had settled into the suburb four years ago to raise a family, the reclusive Sungs next door had kept to themselves, that even the nosy and inquisitive Charlotte had relatively little intel on what was going on in the household beyond Benjamin was taking care of his grandson.

Just as Kirsten was about to follow up on Charlotte’s sideways advice, than the five foot one gnomelike Benjamin came out from the side passage from the kitchen which ran the length of the neighbouring property from front yard to back, that faced her house. The old Asian man wielded a straw broom as he looked uncomprehendingly at the cats swarming on the front lawn beyond the barrier of the green painted wood lattice gate he closed behind him.

“Uh – Hi,” a perplexed Benjamin said to his neighbours, as he used the broom to keep some inquisitive amorous felines at bay whom seemed to find him interesting for some reason as they began sniffing at him, “Do you know what’s going on out here ?”

“Mr Sung, it appears you may have a rodent problem that’s attracting these creatures,” Charlotte declared in firm voice speaking down to someone of inferior social standing. It hadn’t been that long ago, when Australia had subscribed to the White Australia policy which although debunked, there were still people who believed that Whites were naturally superior in the social order.

“Wut?,” Benjamin shook his head at the skinny brunette’s conclusion, as three cat’s latched onto his right pants leg in a decidedly overly friendly fashion which he proceeded to scrape off with his broom, but not before more inquisitive cats began crowding on Benjamin as he staggered, “Are you calling me a rat ?”

“Well, those cats obviously find something interesting about you,” Charlotte Daniels stated acerbicly as the mob of cats on the yard began swarming around Benjamin in a meowing horde.

...MEorowMErrrowMrowMrrowRrRow...

“The kitties want to be friends!,” a shiny green eyed Bethany exclaimed from the fence, as the mob of amorous cats redirected their attention to Benjamin at something which smelled familiar, after they’d briefly attempted to force their way into Sammy’s bedroom from the balcony, “Oh, look at them rub against the nice man, Mommy!”

...MeowMEowMrowMrrowRrrOW...

“I think,” Benjamin had a sudden epiphany as the cats tore the broomstick away from his hands, while the furry mob surrounded his legs like furred meowing concrete boots whom were slowly rising up in a furry mass up his thighs, “I need help...really – help!”

“Oh my,” Kirsten said as she watched her socially reclusive neighbour come under the threat of being buried under the mound of writhing cats. The red head mother looked around her pristine front yard for something to serve as a weapon, when her green eyes fell upon the garden hose attached to its reel, “Bethany, go inside!”

“But Mommy, I want to play with the kitties too!,” the young blonde protested, watching an increasingly desperate Benjamin push away the furry tide as a shocked round eyed Charlotte stood on the pavement with her hands on her mouth in a silent scream at the macabre sight.

“Inside!,” Kirsten shouted as she grabbed her daughter and rushed to the front door to push the crying girl oblivious to the danger into safety, before running around to the garden hose which she turned on and began dousing the now covered Benjamin whom had collapsed under the weight of cat, that only his right arm was sticking out of the swarm of roiling meowing fur.

The spray of cold water seemed to wake the cats up from whatever had possessed them, the furry mound burying Benjamin underneath their roiling furry bodies began to melt away as chastened panicked wet cats scampered off under the stream of water sprayed upon them by the redhead.

“Aaaugh, Aaaugh !,” Charlotte shrieked and flapped her arms in a crowlike fashion, jumping like she was on fire on the pavement as doused damp frightened cats boiled over the barrier of the brown brick fence and shrubs past her feet, then ran off in all directions.

A grim faced Benjamin regained his feet as the meowing tidal wave washing over him in a stink of wet feline fur receded, that he was able to see and grab his wet broomstick which he used to drive off the remaining cats whom persisted before rushing over to the garden hose at the side of the house, where he added another cold stream of water to Kirsten’s hose to drive off the more persistent cats whom lingered in the shrubs or took cover on the balcony.

And then it was over, the last of the invading cats had fled the scene – a heavily breathing Benjamin switched off the tap as Charlotte Daniels underwent a mental breakdown on the pavement from the catastrophic abuse of her sense of the natural order. Kirsten exchanged glances with her elderly Asian neighbour, a cold sense of calm overlaying her panic as the redhead mother glance over her shoulder to find her upset tearful daughter standing behind the flyscreen, before she let her breath out.

“Cats! CATS! AAAAAAAH! CATS!,” Charlotte Daniels screamed as she ran off to her house, her hands flailing around her at imaginary furred assailants.

Kirsten and Benjamin watched the skinny brunette rush off into her house, where the woman was heard slamming the door shut and having a nervous breakdown behind closed doors.

“Well, that happened,” a doused Benjamin said after a few stoical contemplative moments, before licking his lips and turning to spit something out of his mouth on the vacated lawn with a wry expression, “Never thought I’d complain about a mouth full of pussy.”

Kirsten stared blankly a long moment as she held the hose which she’d crimped to stop the flow of water, then promptly cracked up in hysterical laughter at the statement. It just seemed so off coloured hilarious and ‘Australian’, that the words overcame cultural barriers.

Benjamin and Kirsten got to know each other better as neighbours as they chatted over the fence in the warm afternoon as to what had just happened, a disappointed Bethany joined the adults as she looked for any of the ‘kitties’ whom might have remained behind for her to play chase with.

That was when the boy and the biggest fluffy orange cat she’d ever seen in her life appeared, calling from the French doors which had been thrown open as the boy announced that the cat had wet the mattress...somehow, Bethany imagined that the big orange furred cat looked awfully annoyed at the boy.

Kirsten took the opportunity to establish firmer neighbourly relations with the elderly Asian as Charlotte was decommissioned, and offered to come over and help with changing the bedsheets whilst Benjamin got into dry clothes, as a bouncing Bethany looked forward to making friends with the big orange furred cat.

* * *


	8. Accidental Demon Summoning 101

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Bethany, Fluffy and Sammy looked out from the bedroom balcony at Grampa and Kirsten Stewart, as they carted the soiled mattress out to the driveway. The ‘soiled’ mattress had been tossed over the balcony the children and cat were observing adults from. The young blonde girl had been delighted when Fluffy stood up on his hind paws and braced his front paws on the low brick wall alongside them, with bushy tail twitching back and forth with interest.

Bethany’s mother, Kirsten, had offered to help change the bed sheets and blankets which had been heaped into the white plastic laundry basket, but Grampa had decided the mattress was beyond saving – whatever had happened in the afternoon, had stunk it up with a heavy musky stink which seemed to have gotten worse after Sammy and Fluffy showered.

Kirsten had been affected by the smell, her face had gotten flushed and sweaty when she stripped off the bed sheets for washing and helped Grampa with moving the mattress by which time she’d been breathing funny, but Bethany had remained unaffected other than wrinkling her nose – Grampa just found the odour strong, but was otherwise indifferent to it.

“Oh my, that smell is all over me,” Kirsten announced in an odd higher pitched feminine voice as she panted, and fanned her flushed face, “Bethany seems to be getting along with your grandson. Could I trouble you to look after her while I go home for a wash?”

“I’d be happy to,” Benjamin replied, dusting his hands as he looked askance at the oddly behaving redhead, “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’ll be fine as soon as I get myself under a cold shower. Thank you,” Kirsten replied with a nod to Benjamin, blinking dilating green eyes as she waved at Bethany, Fluffy and Sammy on the balcony. The redhead mother stepped out onto the pavement and walked over to her home with an odd kind of loose ‘slinky’ step, which had Grampa giving her an odd look with lips puckered, “Bethany! Mommy needs to go and take a bath, so behave yourself while you’re playing with the Sungs.”

“Yes Mommy,” Bethany acknowledged as she broke out in a beaming smile, putting arms around Fluffy in a decidedly proprietary fashion, “Fluffy, Sammy and I are bestest friends, aren’t we?”

“Mrow?,” Fluffy said with inscrutable feline dignity as he watched the redhead mother walk with a quick measured step, which came off resembling a sexy strut like she’d just discovered an underwear malfunction, and was trying to escape somewhere private to fix the problem.

“Just behave, Mommy will be back soon,” Kirsten sang, opening the front gates of her home as she quickly rushed up the path and steps to jerk open the front door with unnecessary force, and let it slam shut behind her in her haste to get inside.

“You’re Mom’s kind of weird,” Sammy advised the blonde girl hanging onto Fluffy.

“Daddy say’s it’s that PMS thing,” Bethany replied sagely, rubbing her cheek against Fluffy’s fur with a happy sigh, “Happens every month.”

Fluffy looked down at the blonde girl clinging onto his middle like a burr, and absently rubbed the top of her head with a tufted paw, then pushed experimentally before concluding he wasn’t about to get rid of her that easily.

Sammy looked at the affectionate blonde rubbing her face into Fluffy’s fur, then remembered a chore he hadn’t gotten around to attending to the last few days.

“Hey, Bethany...how would you like to help groom Fluffy?”

* * *

One of the lesser known pains in the ass of owning a cat, is the daily grooming routine.

Fluffy is a particularly furry breed of cat and needs brushing out at least once a day, and in heavy shedding seasons that can go up to three times in a seemingly futile struggle. Miss the comb and hairbrush for a couple of days during Autumn or Spring, and the walking fur generator can shed orange lint all over the house and turn the carpet orange, which is a big enough pain to clean up with a heavy duty vacuum with rotating head attachment as it is.

You may think that ‘Oh, but he’s a cat, they lick their fur clean all the time’.

Ha.

No.

Aside from coughing up hairballs all the time, and I mean ALL the time, your furry friend’s spiny sandpapery tongue mostly just gets rid of the surface stuff, and isn’t quite long enough to get down deep in the dense stuff...I kid you not, but I’ve brushed out a quarter of Fluffy’s bodyweight in fur during shedding season.

I suppose out in the wild, long haired cats can just explode fur all over the place without any concern, but doing so inside the house is less than ideal for the people who have to clean up after them.

One of the reasons why Fluffy and I are so close, is due the fact that grooming him is one of my chores and I’ve been doing it since forever with a long tooth brush – often during bath time when he jumps in with me. Fluffy still sheds enough fur regardless of the preventative maintenance, to the point where I have fantasies of tying him up and attacking him with a No.1 shaving attachment all over to minimise the upkeep...believe me, the French poodle style lingers in the back of my thoughts.

Seeing the orange fur ball being brushed by the rapt chatty green eyed blonde little girl next door, whom seemed fascinated with how much orange lint she could accumulate on the flat brush I’d given her, just rubbed me wrong for some reason despite the fact I was happy somebody else was stuck with the job.

“Sam, look at all this fur!,” Bethany exclaimed, picking at all the thick wad of orange fur caught in the long steel bristles of the flat brush, just from running it through Fluffy’s tummy fur a few times, “You’re shedding so much fur, Fluffy.”

“Chirp,” Fluffy said, lying on his back with a narrow eyed look of feline bliss.

“That’s normal, if you leave him a couple of days,” I replied, idly watching the neighbour’s daughter discover the joys of grooming a long haired cat, “Short hair cats are so much easier to take care of.”

Fluffy gave me a filthy feline stare of reproach as he extended his right paw splayed at me with claws unsheathed behind Bethany’s back, before returning to acting the part of a big fluffy domestic pile of fur, batting at the girl for attention, “Chirp.”

“Coming,” Bethany sang as she removed enough fur from the brush to resume grooming the cat, where she pulled the brush through Fluffy’s fur until it got clogged again, “Have you ever thought of giving Fluffy a haircut?”

I grinned evilly at the wide eyed cat as I rubbed my peachy smooth four year old’s cheek, “Oh yeah, low maintenance buzz cut. Number one all over, and goodbye cat hair.”

“Niaow,” Fluffy said, shaking his head apprehensively at the implied threat.

“But lots of fur isn’t bad either,” Bethany said as she picked orange fur out of the brush and help it up with a smile with the other pieces of Fluffy fluff on her lap, “I like Fluffy fur.”

“Rowr!,” Fluffy suddenly lunged at the girl’s back, wrapping his paws around her waist as he rubbed his furry cheek against her affectionately. Bethany giggled as she petted a purring Fluffy whom had latched onto her and was enthusiastically nuzzling with a fanged smile at the save.

“Hey, stop playing Fluffy, it tickles,” Bethany began laughing as she pushed against the cat’s insistent embrace around her waist whom began licking her hair, “I haven’t finished brushing you yet.”

Why was I feeling so irritated?

This alien feeling like something had flicked the side of my forehead...

It took a few moments before I managed to grasp the burn and figure out what it was, because up until now, I’d never actually felt ‘jealousy’...or maybe it was ‘envy’. Either way, I mentally cornered it and ‘pushed’ it out – what I didn’t expect was coughing up a blob of something black and tarry, which was ejected out with splat on the parquetry where it quivered.

“Waugh!”

“Hey, stop Fluffy, bad cat - no claws!,” Bethany admonished as Fluffy’s embrace went rigid around her torso, “Hey, are you alright, Sammy? You could be coming down with a bad cough.”

It took me a few moments to realise that Bethany couldn’t actually ‘see’ the thing I’d coughed up, which sat there quivering on the floor like a blob of oil which Fluffy and I could. I felt much better, though, my irritation with the cat gone...I heard from Grampa that you could wrap up bad feelings and throw it out, which is what I did, but I hadn’t expected it to be a physical thing.

Or, not so physical thing, if the way Bethany had resumed brushing the now wary cat was anything to go by...what is that...that ‘Thing’?

And Geez, it looked ugly – I mentally ‘pushed’ it again.

The tarry blob began to quiver into an egg shape, I concentrated and then the egg sprouted stubby arms and legs. I went with the flow an stubby rounded ears and beady eyes appeared on the neckless head– it looked kind of like a wombat, so that’s what I went with as dense brown fur rippled over its tarry black surface...does a wombat have whiskers?

Well, let’s keep things simple – I finalised the mental pushing into a simplified caricature of a wombat, which was about as innocent and harmless an image as I could picture.

“Snarf.”

“Okay, this is new,” I began as the newly created creature given form looked around the room with beady black eyes.

Fluffy stood up and loomed over the mouse sized intruder, his right paw held up as if to slap down on the proto-creature I’d just coughed up. Sure, I understood about bacteria that co-existed inside the human body, but this thing didn’t ‘feel’ anything like a bacteria – it wasn’t even ‘alive’.

“Look Sammy, Fluffy’s standing up!,” Bethany exclaimed with wonderment as she stood up herself, and came to a realisation she was still shorter than the standing cat, “And he’s so tall!”

“Snarf?”

I thought about it – negative emotion, ejected from my body – and there was a ‘hungry’ sensation coming from it which felt like it needed to feed on something...a possession of some kind? It was able to change shapes, adapt to thoughts and I think, ‘feed’ on emotions...wait a sec, I’m a Witch, right? So this thing must be a...

“Demon,” I said with a sudden leap of intuition, hitting my right fist into the palm of my left hand, “I’ve summoned a Demon.”

“Bullshit,” a very disturbed Fluffy said in his usual squeaky high pitched catlike voice, not taking his eyes off the mini-wombat creature which was had managed to twist its head around in a full 360 rotation as it surveyed its surroundings, and just stood there blinking and waiting for instructions, “That is so Wrong.”

“Fluffy can talk too?,” Bethany frowned critically as she looked up at Fluffy, “Fluffy has a potty mouth.”

Something safe to feed on – something...oh, that’ll do.

“Snarf,” the Demon said, blinked beady eyes, then smiled with a maw full of pointy teeth as it suddenly raced off past Fluffy and an oblivious Bethany, out my bedroom door.

“Mouse!,” Fluffy squealed as he involuntarily levitated, then latched onto Bethany and wrapping himself around her at the sudden explosion of movement.

“Aaah, where?,” Bethany whom staggered and sat down hard under the weight of the cat suddenly jumping on top of her.

I wondered whether it hadn’t been a mistake, to sending the Demon off to ‘feed’ on the house roach population.

However, the Demon was gone, so I smirked at Fluffy as Bethany tried to pry off the startled cat wrapped around her head and shoulders, “And you have the balls to call yourself a cat.”

When I suddenly realised I had a problem, how do we handle the blonde green eyed witness?

* * *


	9. Pussy Power

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Benjamin Llewellyn Sung came back into the house after a flustered looking Kirsten had rushed off after dumping her daughter into his care, and went to move the unused spare mattress from the guest room over to his grandson’s bed.

The two kids and the cat had offered to take the bedding and blankets stripped from the old mattress, out to laundry in the garage. The neighbour’s daughter did seem to be getting on with his grandson very well, Benjamin thought as he contemplated whether or not to use a plastic bed liner after moving the spare mattress in place...but no, Sammy had associated the plastic bed liner with bed wetting, and the last thing the boy needed was for some subconscious psychological inducement for the nocturnal emissions to start flowing again.

Kids were tougher than people thought, but Benjamin’s experience on the topic indicated that they could also be amazingly fragile. Why, he grimaced at the memory, a prank by his own older brother when he was at a young impressionable age involving a cup of warm water while he’d been sleeping, had led to a deplorable state of dousing himself in bed...which older brother had found hilarious, and the raging cunt hadn’t let him know how it all started until years after the fact.

No, the plastic bed liner brought back some rather unpleasant personal memories, that Benjamin was loathed to inflict upon his grandson. As for the cat, well, Fluffy wasn’t normally prone to bed wetting, and had in fact been one of the reasons why Sammy had stopped the habit himself – which was why Benjamin had allowed the cat to continue sleeping with his grandson, rather than moving the cat basket our of the room.

With fresh sheets and new blankets in place, Benjamin went to check up on the children when the doorbell rang. Benjamin was surprised to find his neighbour, Gregory Stewart at the door with a wide grin under his moustache, whom had evidently come home early from work.

“Ah, Mr Sung, I’m your neighbour next door, Greg – may I call you Benjamin,” the tall and fit looking dark blond man whom obviously kept himself in shape, introduced himself. Without waiting for a reply as Greg rushed in a mildly agitated manner, “Ah, I know this is on short notice, but I need a babysitter to look after Bethany for the evening, er – maybe the rest of the night in fact. Er, here’s fifty bucks for your troubles, thanks – see you in the morning.”

Benjamin found himself clutching a fifty dollar note as Gregory Stewart skipped off with a bouncy step back to his home, past the old mattress and through the driveway’s opened gates, with a distracted eager grin of a man who’d hit pay dirt.

“Sure,” Benjamin responded after a beat to the man’s retreating back, holding up the note to the light to check the watermark, “You’re welcome, Greg.”

Well, Benjamin thought as he shut the door, he needn’t have to worry about grocery bills the rest of the month.

* * *

Covetous eyes studied the Prize beyond the barred gates, which the Old Two Legs of the Cold Rain had been guarding, before the Old Two Legs had gone back inside the house. The Prize lay seemingly abandoned behind the gate, the tantalising alluring smell beckoning as the calculating Femdom eyed it from the refuges they’d temporarily retreated to.

It was not long, before their caution was vindicated, as the Two Legs of the Beef Jerky in the house next door arrived in the Stinky Iron House, which it got out of once it stopped roaring and spewing forth smell blinding noxious fumes. The Two Legs of the Beef Jerky had gone to the front door of the abode, where it was opened by the Two Legs of the Red Fur whom had proceeded to viciously attack and maul the defenceless Beef Jerky on the doorstep.

“Oh God, Greg! Thank God You’re Back!”

“Honey, Baby – Mmmm (smooch). Did you miss me? Hey – not on the doorstep, ow (female hands fumbling at belt buckle and fly), Wait!”

The small watchers observed the fight with narrowed eyes and shivered...it was vicious, filled with screaming as Red Fur ripped the fur off Beef Jerky without mercy as it dragged the hapless two legs inside the house, where banging sounds emanated which implied a fierce struggle was taking place.

And then there was silence – the whispers and sniffs ensued as to whether to take the prize, but older wiser heads advising caution prevailed, that the waters remained where they were and watched patiently from cover. The caution was justified as the Two Legs of the Beef Jerky emerged, his thin outer fur mauled off by Red Fur, and quickly walked across the pavement to open the driveway gates barring the Prize with a clank of metal.

There was an almost palpable hiss of excitement at the Prize now lying unprotected, the gate open and unbarred as Beef Jerky waked up the driveway and made a ringing noise that opened the door and the Old Two Legs of the Cold Rain appeared.

Ah, Mr Sung, I’m your neighbour next door, Greg – may I call you Benjamin. Ah, I know this is on short notice, but I need a babysitter to look after Bethany for the evening, er – maybe the rest of the night in fact. Er, here’s fifty bucks for your troubles, thanks – see you in the morning.”

“Sure...You’re welcome, Greg.”

The Two Legs of the Beef Jerky then came back up the driveway, having evidently been encouraged by the exchange with the Old Two Legs of the Cold Rain whom had imparted some arcane wisdom, as Beef Jerky seemed to have been revitalised as it moved back to challenge Red Fur for dominance. Cold Rain studied the scrap of paper which Beef Jerky had given it – perhaps it was a treat or offering, because Cold Rain did not challenge Beef Jerky’s trespass but disappeared back inside its dwelling.

Beef Jerky strode back into Red Fur’s territory, and then the sounds of more terrifying vicious fighting ensued, that minds could only imagine the horrifying bloodletting which only the two leg kind were capable of...but, the Prize now lay undefended, tantalising, beckoning.

Again, hushed whispers and smells were exchanged, but elder wisdom again prevailed as the light of day dimmed to the point where it was believed the two legs were loathed to venture outside.

The call was given to converge upon the Prize.

MeowMrowMEowmrOwmeOW

The horde of Femdom surged out of cover in their individual eagerness, and darted towards the Prize of Alluring Smell beyond the opened gate in a fashion which could be compared to the legendary ‘Shoe Sale’, which it was whispered as urban rumour drove the females Two Legs into a mating frenzy.

The Femdom launched themselves onto the Prize, bathing in its delightful intoxicating smell which puffed out as bodies rolled and writhed in orgasmic ecstasy, the alluring musky smell of Alpha Male intertwined with the delicate scent of its Two Leg Attendant – invoking images of juicy young flesh and the milk of plenty.

However, the first rush of the ecstatic smell was met with quandary – the Old Two Legs of the Cold Rain could appear at any time, and drive away the Femdom with the cold wet spray of water.

This. Must. Not Be.

Having been driven from the Prize once before, the Femdom were loathed to relinquish the Alluring Smell again, that the urgent hisses and whispers broke out. There was a muted heated debate ranging from partitioning the Prize to defending it from all Two Legs...but it was reluctantly agreed, that the Two Legs would eventually prevail, as they always seem to, and the Femdom would be driven off.

Heads were put together, then it was moved by some elder wisdom that there was a lair nearby, which was largely bereft of Two Leg activity and seldom visited during the day. If the Prize could be moved there, then it would be safe...but the Prize was heavy and unwieldy, how could such a thing be moved when none amongst the Femdom was strong enough to budge it?

The gathered Femdom breathed in deeply of the complex aroma, the smell of Alpha Male and the juicy young Two Leg Attendant, and a decision was made.

The Power of Femdom began to Move.

* * *

“I feel like I’ve just been raped,” I clutched the front of my shirt defensively.

“You too?,” Fluffy looked around furtively for some sign of imminent threat about to pounce out of the garage walls, “Like a thousand noses sniffing at you like a side of BBQ Pork left hanging out in the open.”

“What are you two talking about,” Bethany asked as she lowered the 50cm long length of leftover curtain rail which was substituting for a ‘Wand’, and peeled the blindfold up to look at us as we paused bouncing tennis balls at her in an attempt to hit, “Are you sure this is training is working? I can’t see anything with my eyes covered.”

“You aren’t supposed to ‘See’ with your eyes,” I said, having run into difficulties explaining how I was able to ‘sense’ things once I explained I was a Witch, and why it must be kept a secret from the adults.

“See with your ears, not your eyes” Fluffy replied, twitching his tufted ears, “It’s like echolocation, listen where the ball is.”

“Mou. Being a Witch is tiring, can I go and get some juice?,” Bethany clutched at the stick with an unhappy look at her lack of progress so far.

“Sure, just go to the kitchen and ask Grampa for some,” I said, as Bethany grateful put down the rod against the wall with a happy nod, and rushed out the side door of the garage.

“You think this training is going to work,” I whispered at Fluffy, as soon as Bethany was outside.

“Probably not, but it’s fun teasing the blonde,” Fluffy replied back softly with a mew of amusement.

A moment later, Bethany rushed back inside with breathless excitement, “Fluffy! Sam! – The Kitties are stealing your bed!”

Fluffy and I exchanged looks, then rushed outside with the excited blonde to look up the driveway, where we saw lots and lots of centipede like furry legs under my old mattress which the Council was supposed to have picked up tomorrow, walking out the front gate where it awkwardly turned a corner to the left, then began walking down the road with cats scouting ahead and rushing back and forth to keep eyes on any obstacles.

Fluffy and I stared a long moment after letting ourselves out the side gate with Bethany whom rushed out to the pavement to watch the progress of the bed wandering crookedly down the road in the waning afternoon light, then we both sniffed suspiciously under our armpits for lingering smells.

“I think we should call it a day,” Fluffy said flatly, “I need a bath.”

“Yep. I get this mental picture of cats trying to make off with me in the middle of the night,” I agreed, wondering whether Grampa would believe the old mattress had just walked off.

“That was so Awesome,” a shiny eyed Bethany hopped up and down excitedly as a few lingering cats stared her off from interfering with their theft, “This never happened to me before I started learning how to be a Witch!”

“Um, yeah – surprise,” I said, as the mattress turned another left at the end of the block, and disappeared out of sight, “Magic can be pretty weird, right Fluffy?”

“Mrrrw,” Fluffy snorted, shaking his head.

* * *


	10. The Nature of Nanites

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Medical nanites have been prevalently used by the Alteran species for tens of millions of years.

This is why the species managed to remain physically unchanged, seemingly unaffected by evolutionary forces for tens of millions of years of their existence, that an Alteran humanoid from the original Ori home galaxy from which they came some 55 million years ago, is physically indistinguishable from an Alteran from the Milky Way galaxy some 50 million years later.

However, there are civilian grade medical nanites...and then there are military combat medical nanites.

The former civilian grade stuff expired around five million or so years ago, when the last true ‘Alteran’ went extinct. The latter used their remaining energies to put themselves into an appropriate state of stasis until an appropriate compatible organism was encountered for deployment. It says alot about Alteran engineering, that the combat medical nanites had little trouble deploying after five millions years of dormancy.

There were, however, significant differences between the civilian grade stuff and the military grade nanites beyond mere robustness. The former civilian grades couldn’t operate outside of a neural net of the host organism, where the military stuff could take independent action if certain conditions were met.

Upon being ingested by one Sammy and Fluffy, the military grade nanites deployed and encountered the conditions where they could take independent action as per survival protocols to ‘preserve’ the genetic legacy of the Alteran species.

Military nanites are by nature ruthless, and ethics under ‘Survival of the Species’ protocol don’t have much bearing when options to preserve the Alteran genetic legacy are limited to just two units. So, the decision to undertake full genetic conversion was made...

Now, Full Genetic Conversion sounds like a fairly clean and antiseptic procedure...which is actually extremely misleading, since it pretty much amounts to tossing a person into a blender and flicking the ‘on’ switch to puree the remains as feedstock in which to rebuild a new body to specification.

Very Messy on a physical level, let alone the spiritual one.

Anyway, when the genetic conversion began a few hours earlier once an unsuspecting Asian boy and fluffy orange cat too an afternoon nap, the usual nanite safety protocols were removed as they were tasked with something which was counter to their programming – namely, the total destruction of the hosts they were deployed in at the genetic level, to convert them to Alteran specifications.

Nanites attacked DNA...as there was a significant amount of DNA embedded in the bedding and mattress, a significant amount of nanites spilled out of the two hosts and proceeded to ravenously convert skin cells, hair and fur in the bedding and mattress...where upon they went into standby mode as they were outside the effect of the directing neural network which had been assembled inside the heads of Sammy and Fluffy.

Given enough time, the available energy would run out and the nanites would ‘die’, but for the moment they infested the nanite and mattress which later the genetic pod personed Sammy and Fluffy would detect as a ‘metallic spicy’ stink when they woke up after the ordeal they’d slept through.

Just patting the bedding or mattress would be enough to send up clouds of nanites drifting through the air, so when the boy and cat woke up and threw back the blankets and got out of bed after their conversion, they’d unwittingly scattered clouds of invisible nanites on standby mode flying around.

Now, this wouldn’t have mattered much if it weren’t for the fact that while they’d been sleeping through the otherwise traumatic experience, the nanites inside Sammy and Fluffy had been condensing pheromones as the two were being converted – these concentrated male pheromones mostly permeated the blankets, bedding and mattress the two were sleeping on, but it also drifted out of the room to more sensitive female noses whom were attracted towards the nanite cloud.

The nanites had, as a side effect of the conversion, helpfully ‘fixed’ Sammy’s non-functional prepubescent reproductive organs which they’d interpreted as ‘damaged’, to some distress of the boy when he woke up to find himself embarrassingly well endowed. However, since human noses were considerably less sensitive to smell, the strong pheromones were rather less effective attracting females of breeding age than the ones produced by Fluffy.

In the instance of the big orange cat, those powerful species specific pheromones attracted a great many curious females of the furry four pawed variety across the neighbourhood, whom according to their catlike nature followed their noses to the source...where they then fell victim to the increasing density of the lingering nanite cloud.

This was the reason why the mob of female cats had gathered outside on the balcony of the boy and cat, as exposure to the disperse nanite cloud insidiously infiltrated through sniffing noses into sinus cavities and ultimately up into feline brains where they established a kind of ‘hub’ in which to form a connection to the next infected female cat in what amounted to a crude hive mind.

The longer the exposure to the nanite cloud, the stronger the ‘identity’, that grew within the sub-sentient cats. When Sammy and Fluffy woke up and got out of bed after their nap, they unwittingly increased the density of the invisible nanite cloud in their vicinity – and it was this, which put the mob of cats outside their bedroom into a frenzy as neural activity spiked within feline minds.

The cats outside on the balcony instinctively understood that getting closer to the denser nanite cloud would result in ‘good’ things for their mental development, but still being cats, they began desperately fighting amongst each other to get into the bedroom to soak up the nanites. Cats whom had managed to achieve a minimal ‘hive mind’ presence backed off and patrolled the garden to allow as yet unconnected furry minds to become initiated into the growing Local Area Network of the female feline hive.

The process was interrupted by the appearance of Benjamin Llewellyn Sung, whom the hive minded cats detected as a potential threat that they proceeded to swarm him in order to keep him away. The primitive feline hive mind understood that causing injury would have undesired consequences, so the indoctrinated cats rather than apply fang and claw to drive Benjamin off...fell back on that feline tactic of curling themselves around the legs of their human caretakers.

When Kirsten Stewart sprayed cold water on the cats swarming Benjamin in a mob of meowing fur, the effect was a clash between developing feline hive mind and instinct. Instincts won out and as the cats disperse, and so did the control of the hive mind...but, enough of the indoctrinated cats remained in the vicinity, watching the proceedings, the hive mind managed to re-establish a tenuous hold.

As more little furries filtered back into the vicinity, attracted by the smell after licking their fur down, the hive mind grew stronger. Instinct still warred with hive mind though, that the watching cats stayed their distance...until Benjamin and Kirsten carted out the old mattress, which they were unwittingly spewing dense clouds of invisible nanites into the environment.

Feline eyes dilated with excitement upon smelling a source of such concentrated pheromones.

Now, as Benjamin and Kirsten carried out the mattress from Sammy’s bedroom, the elderly Asian remained singularly unaffected by the metaphorical soup of invisible nanites he was unwittingly splashing around by disturbing the mattress as he didn’t meet the parameters of the nanite vectors. Kirsten wasn’t nearly as fortunate, being a female of appropriate species and breeding age – the redhead immediately came under assault, and knew it.

The average mind of cat is a far less complex thing than that of a human, lacking the kind of social and psychological defences of human interactions. As Kirsten’s mind came under assault whilst helping Benjamin carry his grandson’s mattress out to the driveway, an instinctive phenomena which humans who’ve come under a life or death event occurred which is seldom mentioned...Kirsten began to get horny.

Yes, it’s an embarrassing phenomena to admit, that the adrenaline rush of nearly getting killed or the intense spike of psychological pressure of watching a fellow ape get splashed into chunky salsa makes some people want to go and fuck someone to relieve the stress – combat soldiers who’ve been exposed to the psychological dangers of putting their lives at risk in war, sometimes experience an otherwise unattainable sexual thrill or high which gets them addicted to what their minds interpret as a pleasurable stimuli, which is why there are some serious crazy veterans lurking out there...indeed, there’s good evidence that minds ‘damaged’ in such a way are actually rewired by the experience.

Anyway, Kirsten experienced the nanite assault as getting horny, and instinctively put as much distance between her and the source as she rushed off to cleanse herself of the ‘deviant’ urges she was undergoing. Fortunately for the redhead’s rapid descent into depravity, she wasn’t a cat and the nanites she’d inhaled hadn’t lingered long enough to cause lingering damage in the absence of a ‘human’ hive mind to control the process – the feline hive mind was attuned sufficiently differently that there was an inability to communicate.

So, as Kirsten stood under a cold shower and shuddered, the threat of indoctrination faded.

Meanwhile, Bethany Stewart whom was playing with Sammy and Fluffy, also remained unaffected – while she was female, she failed the ‘suitable breeding age’ roll, and the nanite cloud largely ignored her...largely.

The close proximity of Sammy and Fluffy’s neural nets did influence a few nanites, but in the absence of firm directives from the two pod personed ‘Alterans’, the unsuspecting young blonde remained oblivious to the nanite threat which lingered in Sammy’s bedroom – with the mattress removed, the laundry remained the largest source of the nanite cloud, but since it was largely undisturbed in a basket, the dispersed nanite density was relatively minor.

The laundry basket remained undisturbed when the two children and the cat took it down to the laundry in the garage, but transferring the laundry into the washing machine exposed an enthusiastic Bethany to the densest ‘soup’ of nanites which unerringly expended some of their energies to ‘swim’ towards he girl rather than float dormant, as Sammy and Fluffy’s effort to induct Bethany into becoming a ‘Witch’ in order to keep their secret, WAS interpreted as a hard directive by the dispersed nanites the young blonde was inhaling, and while they weren’t numerous enough to cause the gross alterations which had occurred in the cat and boy...they actually did have a measurable effect on Bethany’s neural connectivity.

By the time Gregory Stewart came home and was jumped on by his wife, Bethany’s IQ levels and motor co-ordination had spiked considerably under the snickers of Sammy and Fluffy, as the nanites inside her began reaching a point of exhaustion and began dying off...the changes were actually quite considerable as Bethany swung her makeshift curtain rod wand while blindfolded, that her mental acuity improve that she actually started being able to mentally visualise the tennis balls which Fluffy and Sammy were bouncing in her direction.

There were even some solid connections as Bethany’s motor co-ordination improved to the point where she could have hit the balls consistently if she wasn’t blindfolded...but mostly, it was just two kids and talking cat having fun in the mid 70s.

In the meantime, Gregory Stewart arrived at the conclusion that he definitely didn’t want his daughter interrupting the quality time he was having with his wife, whom had seemingly rediscovered the randy high school girl she’d been in their youth, that the former Australian SASR soldier rushed over to the neighbour and arranged for Benjamin to babysit with an appropriate remuneration, before skipping back to resume where he’d left off.

Many watchful anticipating eyes watched the proceedings of the humans for their moment, and as the afternoon sun began to set into twilight, made their move.

The observing cats rushed out to the mattress, and began jumping and writhing on it in order to cause nanites to disperse into the air where they could inhale it. It got to the point where the female feline hive mind achieved a desired level of connectivity; it could coherently PLAN for the future...and arrived at the conclusion that the mattress had to be transported to a safe place for further indoctrination of the neighbourhood cats to occur.

The neighbourhood cats got more intelligent as tiny minds dwelt on concepts where nothing so complex had been entertained before.

So, in an uncommon act of feline co-operation and co-ordination, the feline hive mind utilised its LAN of furry little minds to move the mattress in the most efficient manner possible for little furry bodies to achieve...the mob of cats whom comprised the Feline Hive Mind were designated tasks such as carrying, scouting and protecting, and began the kitty equivalent of moving Stonehenge.

The mattress began to migrate to a nearby clove of thickets in a park on furry backs and padding paws, which moved it away from further human interference – or accidental exposure to the influences of the nanite cloud for that matter...given a few more days, the nanites would run out of energy reserves, but by then, a quite different variety of cat would be prowling the neighbourhood.

It just goes to show, there’s a lot going on in the background than what’s readily apparent at first glance. People tend to think theirs is the only story which matters, without grasping that they’re interconnected to a whole lot of other stories which they know nothing about.

Meanwhile, after witnessing the furry exodus of the mattress from the driveway, Sammy, Fluffy and Bethany retired to take a bath after their playing in the garage, as Benjamin pondered on what to make for dinner now his food budget had been expanded somewhat.

* * *


	11. The Average Demon Summoner is an Idiot

...Australia...Earth...1974...

The supernatural elder eldritch horror in the lurking in the undercroft of the Sung household which served as a storage for miscellaneous forgotten junk, shivered as the latest pile of lifeless corpses it had sucked dry of life, disintegrated into so much component elemental carbon and other trace metals, before suddenly it began to bulge ominously beneath the surface of its short dense brown fur, like something horrific and parasitical in nature was struggling to get out of it.

Quite suddenly a ‘bud’ bulged from its torso, as the unnatural creature doubled over in a paroxysm of simulated pain...and a wet liquid tearing sound was reminiscent of meat being rendered erupted, a quite horrible noise of flesh being rendered as if something monstrous had ripped itself free of its host.

“Snaaaaarf !”

The squat brown furred creature screamed as it began to replicate in an amoeba-like fashion after it’s ‘Feeding’ upon the hapless multi-legged inhabitants of the household whom were no more, having devoured enough of their individual sparks of life to sustain summoning forth another from the eldritch inhuman world from which it came.

Death, is not the end...there are other worlds beyond Death.

Or, at least, there is for those whom possess a strong enough ‘Soul’ to avoid being devoured by the monstrous undead inhabitants whom lived in those eldritch realms which mortal minds were never meant to see whilst living.

And with a final rip and burst of gore as entrails exploded in a shower of viscera, the Summoning was complete.

“Squee !,” the multi-eyed arachnoid predator cried for the first time as it began scraping itself clean of the viscous bloody fluids which coated its grey fur, looking upon the rotound miniature wombat on its back whose lifeless beady eyes started glassily into infinity, whose bloodied ruined stomach cavity it had ripped itself free from in its macabre birthing.

The grey furred Arachnid demonoid stared...then its eyes, all eight of them, drooped in a peculiar anthropomorphic ‘bemused’ half lidded fashion which should have been anatomically impossible for a normal terrestrial arthropod, as it reached out a clawed appendage and gave apparently dead wombat demon a sharp rap on its thick low browed skull.

The wombat stirred back to life, blinked beady eyes sheepishly as it rolled back upon its stubby feet to looked down upon its ripped open torso, before using its stubby forepaws to press close what should have been a mortal wound which sealed itself back up with a disturbing squelch.

The two demons regarded each other, now they’d established a firm paw and claw hold on this plane of Reality...Hunger.

“Squeeeee !,” It, the newcomer...Hungered, its fearsome fangs dripped with venom.

But, the house was now devoid of bugs which the Summoner of the wombat demon had requested it feed upon, the wombat demonoid had eradicated the bug population more thoroughly than any pest fumigation could have accomplished.

“Snarf,” perhaps, the perspiring miniature wombat shaped demonic entity considered in reply to its fellow demon whom now loomed over it hungrily, there was something else in the house upon which to Feed.

There’d been something in the Summoner’s thoughts beyond the overt image of bugs...something nebulous which began to firm under the prompting of the Hunger, a small and furred creature which also fell under the label of ‘household pest’...rodents.

Yes, rodents were also pests – the wombat hadn’t gone after them as there’d been more than enough bugs to Feed upon, but there should be enough of the round eared creatures scuttling about to sate the demonic Hunger.

“Squee,” good enough for a budding demonic infestation, the arachnid thought as it went scuttling off to wreak unnatural Horror upon the resident rodent population, much to the relief of the miniature wombat whom decided to go notify its Summoner that it had accomplished its primary task of finishing off the roach and bug population infesting the house.

It’ll introduce the newcomer entity to the Summoner after it had finished its instinctive Feeding, the wombat shuddered in relief as the spider scuttled off. It had apparently absorbed enough of life forces of those tiny insectoid ‘Souls’ while Spawning, to have left a certain instinctive imprint of its natural predator in the genesis of the arachnid demonoid.

* * *

Bethany Stewart lay in the neighbour’s bed and studied the unfamiliar shadows on the ceiling from the dim lights filtering through the glass French doors from the balcony outside, the smell of fresh blankets which she had pulled up to her chin lacked the homely familiarity of her own bed.

She was too excited to sleep and found herself studying the ceiling, the day’s adventures fresh on her mind, starting with the kitties which had began swarming next door.

She’d met a big fluffy orange cat whom she made friends with, who turned out to be a magic cat – which made a great deal of sense since Fluffy was more than twice as big as any cat she’d ever seen. The cat could talk, quite intelligibly like the bedtime stories her father sometimes read to her from the book of fairytales about old times and faraway places.

She’d met a nice Asian boy for the first time, and made friends with him before discovering Sammy Sung was a good Witch, and she’d eagerly accepted when both Fluffy and Sammy had offered to teach her how to be one too...she’d gotten use to the game of sometimes hitting a bouncing ball in the garage with a stick while blindfolded, but the training to be a Witch was slow going.

Bethany knew that Witch powers weren’t just a fable, since Sammy could make things float and even tell what Fluffy was seeing from another room. Then there was the unprecedented fact that the kitties had really really liked Sammy’s old bed which a magic spell had been cast on, that they’d stolen it. It was such a neat skill, and she wanted in too – the only drawback was not being able to tell any adults since that would make the magic vanish.

Well, that made sense too.

Magic only worked, because good girls Believed...even her father had said so, while reading her bedtime stories.

But, the day had been one of many first – the first time her mother had left her to alone to play over at a friend’s place, the first time she’d taken a bath with friends and help wash a cat without the parents supervising, the first time she’d eaten delicious Chinese food, the first time a friend had read a book to her instead of her father, the first time she slept in a bed that wasn’t her own – though Bethany had to admit she thought she would be sleeping with Fluffy and Sammy, since she was sleeping in their bed and bedroom, and had been disappointed when her two friends would be sleeping on the couch in the living room.

Bethany would have preferred to sleep on the couch with them while hugging Fluffy like her stuffed toy, Groo, the blue and yellow woolly sock slug her mother had made to keep her company at night, and keep the monsters in the dark away. Bethany had once asked why Groo had blue and yellow bands, but her mother had replied cryptically that her father was a Parramatta Eels supporter...why Groo was a slug instead of an eel, mystified Bethany, though she had to admit that her mother’s plushie making skills was a bit lacking that even her father Greg laughingly called Groo a slug.

All in all, the day had been such an exciting adventure, that Bethany didn’t want it to end.

Then the young green eyed blonde went still, as something rustled in the room...an alien out of place noise which provoked atavistic fears of the dark, instinctive fears as old as man, where the dark was not a time for sleep, but a lightless void to be feared where monsters and predators lurked.

A round eyed Bethany held her breath as she strained to locate where the noise was coming from in the dark.

Under...The...Bed...

There was a monster under the bed.

Bethany paused as she strained her senses to listen for the thing underneath her, of course there was a monster under the bed – there was ALWAYS a monster under the bed in the stories her daddy told her, which made her cling to him and beg him not to go, that it had resulted in a few embarrassing nocturnal emissions rather than brave the darkness.

Rustle....rustle...rustle...

Bethany wanted to just pull the blankets over her head and pretend the resultant cocoon was some kind of impermeable monster proof bunker, when it suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t have to face the monster under the bed alone. Sammy and Fluffy were Witches...maybe it was a ‘friendly’ monster under the bed they knew.

Bethany strained to hear movement, before leaping out of bed, raced to the door and jerked it open as she looked back over her shoulder to see a pair of malevolent red glowing eyes staring back at her from under the darkness of the bed – yep, monster, before saving her screamed sharply then saved her breath as she bolted down the corridor lit by night lights in the plugged into the power points which Grampa Sung had thoughtfully brought out for her, then ran across to the living room to the couch as she began franticly shaking Sammy and Fluffy both awake.

“M – Monster! Monster under Bed!,” Bethany gasped.

* * *

Sleeping on the couch in the living room wasn’t a new experience, as even before our Awakening to self awareness where we’d become more aware of our surroundings, Fluffy and I often fell asleep while watching TV.

Grampa had made the slight oversight the guest room didn’t have a mattress anymore, as that had been moved over to my bedroom after my old mattress had been tossed out...and stolen by cats. Grampa had gone out to take a look for himself, but there wasn’t much more he could do than shut the driveway gates after the mattress had already bolted the premises.

Since Bethany was a guest, she got dibs on my bed, where Fluffy and I migrated out to the couch to go to bed after dinner. Bethany had looked a bit disappointed we weren’t all sleeping together, but she’d been too tired out by the events and excitement of the day to put up much of an argument.

No sooner had I gotten to sleep when I was shaken awake again by a frightened looking Bethany.

“M – Monster! Monster under Bed!,” Bethany gasped, shaking me with both hands.

I’d stopped believing in monsters around the time Fluffy started staying over with me at the restaurant when visiting my parents, and left a mouth on my pillow as he waited proudly for me to wake up and see the gift. The terrifying odd noises I’d been hearing scuttling around the bedroom at the restaurant up until then, suddenly vanished, and I slept confident that the big orange cat prowling around the night before coming back to keep vigil on my bed was on top of things, “It’s probably a mouse.”

“I got this,” Fluffy said as he woke up and bounced onto the carpet, before quickly padding off to eliminate rodent in my room, with Bethany following behind him. I closed my eyes and turned onto my side facing the back of the couch as I pulled the blanket over my shoulder, confident that Fluffy could deal with the rodent...I’m not a fan of rodents, the traumatic childhood experience of waking up to a dead one staring at me with dead beady eyes had made me conclude that there are some things about my orange furred friend I was never going to understand.

A moment later, Bethany and Fluffy rushed back and were shaking my back with hands and paws.

“It’s not a mouse!,” Fluffy hissed urgently, with wide reflective eyes.

“It’s under the bed, making weird noises,” Bethany shuddered with what I associated with feminine squeamishness.

I found myself leading the way back to my bedroom with the dim night lights in the corridor lighting the way to the kitchen and the bathroom.

I’m ashamed to admit I use to have a bedwetting problem when I first moved in to live with Grampa, that he’d plugged night lights in the power points in the corridor from my bedroom to the bathroom and kitchen, in case I woke up needing to go or got hungry. The night lights weren’t necessary after a while, and Grampa ad stopped using them...but, he’d thoughtfully plugged the light back in again for Bethany’s sake.

The girl clutched at the back of my tracksuit top as I led the way, and peered into the familiar environs of my bedroom made slightly sinister by the presence of something else intruding upon it, while Fluffy brought up the rear.

I unhooked her hands from clutching the back of my top, then from the doorway, I dropped down to my knees to look under the bed from a safe distance, and paused. I looked up at a frightened looking Bethany and tensed Fluffy beside me, then got up and flicked on the bedroom lights and quickly as the now basket ball sized squat round brown furred beady eyed Demon trotted out and looked up at me.

“Snarf.”

I felt a palpable sense of relief wash over me as Bethany behind me latched onto my tracksuit top again – this was the Demon I’d accidentally ‘summoned’ earlier, which had run off and been metaphorically feeding off ‘me’ before I’d sent it off hunting bugs and other household pests.

Witches are closely affiliated with summoning Demons, and I hadn’t been too surprised when one turned up – the book I’d read said so, but I got the impression that sometimes if you don’t give them clear instructions, they could find loopholes and make a mess of things.

“What is that thing?,” Bethany asked as she studied the disturbingly cute looking eldritch abomination revealed under the bedroom’s lights, looking at us with alien beady eyes, “A wombat?”

“It’s a Demon I accidentally summoned earlier,” I said dismissively as Bethany tensed a moment before relaxing her grip on my top, then asked the supernatural creature, “Aren’t you suppose to be hunting bugs in the house?”

The basket ball sized wombat opened its mouth to reveal a maw filled with rows of sharklike teeth, “Burp.”

I got the impression of a cartoon cockroach with a red circle and diagonal stripe across it, which evoked an impression that the task had been completed as the wombat closed its mouth and to all intents and appearances looked like a child friendly stuffed toy.

“Oh…okay,” I said, wondering what else I could get the Demon to do.

“Why does it look like a cute brown wombat?,” Bethany asked me curiously, “And why is it saying ’Snarf’.”

“And how are you even understanding it?,” Fluffy asked, crouched warily on all fours at something which he instinctively felt was a bigger predator than he was, despite its outwardly cuddly looking appearance.

Because, that’s the first thing which sprang to mind when the Demon appeared, I thought absently….why? Well, maybe it had something to do with that traumatizing present Fluffy had left on my pillow seemingly a lifetime ago, that I identified rodents with danger – but I hadn’t allowed my fears to run away with me that I’d stopped the Demon from turning into a rat, and forced my own Sammy friendly impressions on it the moment I discovered the Summoned Demon was physically malleable…I liked Ruth Park’s ‘The Muddle Headed Wombat’ to categorize a wombat as sufficiently harmless.

“Demons, are bound by the Rules given them by the Summoner,” I said authoritatively, thinking about the topic of demonology a moment, and frowned thoughtfully as I began linking the dots, “It’s not their fault the Summoners in the past have been complete idiots who’ve imposed their prejudices and expectations on the Demon…it’s perfectly safe, er, right?”

“Snarf,” the wombat said, giving me the thumbs up.

Bethany and Fluffy looked at me sceptically as I stepped into the bedroom and knelt down to pat the wombat’s densely furred low bowed skull, feeling an odd tingling sensation in my hand as I did so as mortal human flesh met eldritch ectoplasmic entity and my senses cleared up a bit more with the contact.

It wanted to be…friends?

No, something more than just friends.

To be never…alone.

Alone…so Alone.

So Hungry…so terribly Terribly…Hungry for Someone, or Thing, to Cling to.

“It wants to be friends,” I shuddered at the alien impression which my mind interpreted as ancient aching loneliness, and made a mistake…there’s a reason why human myths and legends have so many instances of Demon Summonings going so badly wrong…it’s because you average Demon Summoner is an idiot whom ascribes human characteristics to a completely alien entity which has no common points of reference, “Sure, let’s be Friends.”

The Wombat beamed up at me at what I’d imagined to be friendliness…then the world went dark as Fluffy and Bethany screamed.

* * *


	12. The Brutal Truth about Humanity's relationship with Demons

...Earth...Dawn of Human History...

The ape creature cautiously descended from the tree which it had sought shelter in for the night, its hands and grasping feet well adapted for life up in the branches where it was relatively safe from predators which lurked on the ground. However, the jungles and forests in which the ape creature had evolved, had begin to gradually disappear into woodland where trees no longer clumped together closely enough for it to swing in safety between them.

Evolutionary pressures meant that the ape hominids of its ilk had increasingly descended to the ground, in order to forage for food that was no longer as abundant in the tree tops of the thinning forest canopy into increasingly woods as the environment changed.

The ape creature was a primate which belonged to the Hominidae family, which would one day lead to Humanity...however, it wasn’t quite there yet, even thought it moved in an upright bipedal stance. There was still the all critical question of intelligence, the ability to make that final step which separated man from animal.

Anthropologist specialising in the study of early Hominids which preceded Humanity, would one day postulate that the evolution of an ability to walk upright was caused by the need to stand higher off the ground in order to keep watch for predators, thereby freeing up the hands which would lead to the development of the ability to utilise tools, and sustain higher thought which supposedly made Homo Sapiens ‘unique’ in the animal world...they were also quite wrong.

That really doesn’t explain why some chimps in laboratory conditions have a demonstrable higher IQ level than that attributed to the ‘average’ American, but Homo Sapiens have never been particularly big on troubling things like fact or inconvenient truths, when it doesn’t fit their world view of the ‘natural’ order.

This particularly ape creature was not alone, being the youngest female member of a small nomadic family group which had also descended from the treetops as they cautiously moved amidst the forest, gathering berries and nuts amidst the bushes even as they listened for signs of approaching predators which would send them climbing back up into the trees for refuge.

The family group of primates had found a particularly succulent bush of berries...and a very strange transparent reddish jello creature the size of a large melon, which was itself was plucking berries and ‘eating’ them – the creature was like nothing any of the hominids had ever seen before, so they paused and watched as it plucked berries with a transparent pseudopod which extended from its quivering round body. The absorption of berries was slowly tinting the odd jelly creature a reddish hue, but there was no mouth or claw – and the primitive hominids were not above eating small animals.

Besides, the round transparent slime creature – hitherto known as a ‘Red Slime’, looked increasingly like a giant berry as it absorbed the fruit from the bush.

The group of hominids emerged from cover as they surrounded the Red Slime, preventing the strange transparent creature from escaping.

“Ook ook,” the leader of the hominid group peered at the weird helpless looking creature – primitive proto-human speak for ‘we need a volunteer’.

“Meek meek!,” the youngest female hopped up and down eagerly, her mouth slavering in anticipation at sinking her teeth into the Red Slime which looked like a delicious giant berry to its as yet limited life experiences.

The family group of hominids watched intently as the drooling young female reached for the giant fruit.

“Mo-ehhhh?,” the Red Slime squeaked, as it protruded pseudopods towards the strange bipedal animal which had approached it upon sensing ‘hunger’. It understood hunger – the means to exchange information amongst its kind...which the Red Slime had been doing in a rudimentary fashion with the berry plant, as the plant had conveyed a need to ‘move’ its seeds to a different location.

The young female snatched her hand back at the noise as the rest of her family group also jumped back in an instinctive fight or flight response, but hunger won out over caution was the hemmed in Red Slime didn’t move to escape – and that red tinted jello tentacle looked delicious.

The young female reached forward with index finger to touch the transparent red pseudopod...proto-humanity had touched a demon for the first time. She licked her muzzle at the bouncy tactile sensation, then sank her teeth into the appendage. Juicy red berry juices filled her mouth, succulent and sweet as anything she’d tasted in her short primitive life.

“Yumi!,” the female gave her vocal approval as she took another mouthful of the delicious red jello, the family group of primitive hungry hominids descended upon the helpless Red Slime.

Now...any aficionado of Japanese RPG would know that a Slime is a minor mob monster of possibly 'demonic' origins. It’s just that the concept of Japan would be several million years in the future, let alone such things as Anime or RPG – for the moment, proto-humanity’s concept of entertainment comprised of filling one’s belly in safety without the fear of filling some other predator – or pushing their fellow ape out of the tree.

As the family group of hominids hungrily ripped into the delicious Red Slime, the demon in question being happily devoured enacted it’s own demonic nature in the exchange of information – abandoning its temporary corporeal form it had adopted, in favour of moving into more durable flesh in the exchange of meaningful communications which the oddball bipedal creatures were eagerly partaking in.

There was a flash, followed by a sharp crack as hungry monkeys were electrocuted – to add insult to injury, the exploding Red Slime coated the fur of the primitive apes in sticky berry slime even as it knocked the twitching monkeys out on their asses with it’s...well, Possession.

“Owwww,” after some moments, the young twitching female woke up from its electric shock and sensed something ‘different’ about itself – in fact, the awareness of something inside her that was larger and more powerful than itself was overwhelming to its experiences as the rest of the hominid stunned family group picked themselves up, “Some days, it just isn’t worth falling down out of the tree.”

There was a confused pause as they too felt the difference about themselves – this powerful sensation of religious awe which they’d never known before...it was...it was...

The Patriarch hominid fell to his knees, raising its sticky fur covered arms to tree canopy above with a sense of spiritual enlightenment of having been touched by the Divine Spark of intelligence as he wept at the gift of intelligence, “Mine Eyes have Seen the Light, and Felt the Glory of the Lord!”

The other hominids of the family group took the cue and also fell to their knees and raised their arms up to the tree canopy above, in supplication at the presence of The Lord.

“The Hell it is, I’ve just been creamed in the face by a red blob,” the young female hominid complained as she wiped at the sticky juices matting her fur, “What is Wrong with you People?”

The family group glared at the young female’s blasphemy.

“Lucy! You get down on your knees Right Now, or by The Lord you’re going to be feeling it when we get back up in the tree,” the Matriarch screeched at her daughter.

“Bummer,” the young Lucy grimaced as she reluctantly complied with her mother’s demand, “We’ve just been gifted intelligence by some ROB, and the first thing we do is invent religion and politics?”

“Blasphemy!,” the Patriarch growled menacingly, paused as it wiped some of the berry juice from its fur, then licked it reverently at the revelation, “Behold! The Lord’s Flesh is True Food, His Blood True Drink!”

“Ewwww,” Lucy said, watching her hominid family group began licking themselves with orgasmic reverent religious worship an wondered whether she could disown them, “That’s so wrong.”

The Red Slime which had Possessed the family group of hominids, was sufficiently amused at the antics of these delusional apes, it hung around after the initial exchange of communications to see how things would turn out...such non-corporeal entities, were closely tied in with Humanity’s evolution, even if the apes through the ensuing millions of years of evolution were largely clueless about the input.

Several million years later, Lucy’s remains would be unearthed in Ethiopia, and hailed by her delusional descendants as the ‘Mother of Humanity’.

Human scientists in that far away future would question, just what was the moment when Hominids became Human...what was that Divine Spark which changed humanity, and gifted the species of primate with the intelligence to go forth and dominate the world.

Rather, from the perspective of that long ago Red Slime whom had kicked started the relationship of spirits with humanity – it was less a gift of ‘intelligence’, than the otherwise not terribly special species of hominids having acquired a sense of personality.

* * *

“Owww,” I coughed from being electrocuted, and woke up cradled in Bethany’s lap with Fluffy pussy slapping me across the face with his orange tufted paw to stare blankly at the ceiling for long moments, then shuddered as the wisps of fleeting dreams dredged up from my subconscious and the resident demon whom had taken up tenancy on my Soul, was forcefully shoved into the back of my mind where it belonged, “That was so fucked up.”

* * *


	13. Possession, it isn't what the religions make it out to be

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Childhood fears of ‘Monsters under the Bed’, is a leftover survival instinct from the hunter gatherer days a mere 10,000 years ago, when the monsters which lurked in the dark were a very real threat. The dangers in the night before artificial lights and indoor plumbing were a thing, were very real for a child with a full bladder venturing out alone to the bathroom, whom would have constituted an easy snack to a roaming predator.

“Hello – is anyone therrrre?,” Bethany sang in her squeaky sing song voice under the bed with a hopeful smile of a girl hunting for a bargain sale, shining the weak beam of the penlight she’d borrowed from me, “Come out come out and plaaaay with meeee!”

I’d switched off the bedroom lights on the off chance Grampa might come to investigate the commotion from our end of the house, which he use to do when I first moved over from my parent’s restaurant. I guess a young child following the cat around in the dark is cause for concern in those early days, when I was like as not to be curled up with Fluffy behind the sofa pretending it was a cave, than in the bed I went to sleep in.

“Bet, there aren’t any more demons running around under the bed,” I said, trying to convince the excited little blonde bundle of energy to get back to sleep, “I only summoned one demon, and Snarf was pretty much an accident when he nibbled on me out of curiosity.”

Earlier – well yesterday now, since it was past midnight, the curious hungry non-tangible supernatural entity whom became Snarf the Wombat, had been attracted to my feelings about the neighbour monopolising my cat. I’d noticed it, and kicked it out of my mind before it could get down to chowing down on my small spark of jealousy, and gave the ravenous ‘thing’ the most harmless form I could think of...and thus was born Snarf the Wombat, whom I’d sent off hunting bugs to sate its Hunger..

“I’m a Witch too. I want my own cute pet demon to play with,” Bethany said from under the bed, shining the Penlite into the nooks and crannies for signs of demonic infestation, “The monsters in your house aren’t scary.”

Fluffy and I watched Bethany’s K-Mart special powder pink polyester jumpsuit clad ass wiggling under my bed, a thin beam from the cheap thin stainless steel ‘Made in Hong Kong’ Penlight powered by two AA batteries shining hither and fro as the girl eagerly searched for any other monsters which might be lurking.

“Sam,” Fluffy solemnly laid a tufted paw on my shoulder where I was crouching down beside Bethany in her search of a demon to call her own, he’s a big cat and has no problems patting my shoulder even on all four paws when I’m crouching down, “It’s a sad thing to say about your manliness, but the girl has bigger balls than you do, and she’s the wrong gender.”

I had this terrible uncharitable predatory urge to grab a magic marker and write ‘Victim’ on that wiggling polyester bottom – I’d never been a fan of powder pink, and I got the impression my Mom had picked up the jumpsuit Bet had borrowed from my wardrobe, at one of those end of year K-Mart discount sales where the supermarket chains unload stuff they couldn’t otherwise sell...it’s a sad commentary on the human condition that modern life in the latter half of the 20th Century has not merely stunted any self sense of self preservation, it’s pretty much eradicated survival instincts.

Quite disturbing, a pair of beady wombat eyes popped out with a disturbing drooling mouth under a stubby nose on the palm of my itching right hand, which had reacted to being tempted.

“Bet, it’s not a good idea to go looking for demons if you’re frightened of them,” I said unhelpfully to Bethany, feeling an odd urge to touch the polyester fabric stretched over that behind – I frowned, and the demon sank back into unblemished pink flesh as I groped Fluffy instead, and the unsuspecting instinctively arched into my hand which ‘fed’ off the feelings Fluffy was subconsciously putting out, “Believe me, getting Possessed is like getting electrocuted – stings something awful.”

Fluffy happily beat his bushy tail against my arm as we were spot lighted in an awkward pose of my hand petting the orange cat’s ass by the weak beam of the Penlite...the beam wasn’t that strong, since the light hadn’t been used since Grampa bought it for me shortly after I’d come to live with him, and the batteries needed replacing.

Fluffy and I froze as Bethany looked at us speculativlely.

I don’t know why I suddenly felt like I was doing something weird, because I’ve been petting Fluffy since forever without feeling odd about it.

“That’s not fair – you sleep with a Familiar cat and got possessed by a pet Snarf wombat demon too,” Bethany sighed, flicking the light away from a round eyed Fluffy and I, “There’s got to be a spare demon in your house I can have.”

“Um – we’re just good friends,” Fluffy coughed awkwardly, batting my hand away with tail and paw, “Sam makes for a good substitute hot water bottle on cold nights. We’re not really ‘familiar’ like that.”

“I pretend Fluffy’s a stuffed toy when he sleeps with me – my parents were too cheap to buy me a real plushie to sleep with,” I snatched my hand back, as Fluffy and I eyed each other up and down, before mutually agreeing the topic was getting weird, “Anyway, you finished under there?”

“Mmm,” Bethany said as she backed out and sat back on her heels with an unhappy frown, playing the dim dying yellowing light of the Penlite around the room, before clicking it off, “Hey, can I borrow Fluffy to sleep with tonight? I don’t have a real teddy bear either – my Mom made me a sock slug who I sleep with, but I didn’t bring Groo over with me.”

“I guess,” Fluffy said, his bushy tail held high in a friendly manner as he looked uncertainly at me, “Why were we sleeping out on the couch, anyway?”

“Grampa said I should, because Bethany might feel uncomfortable sharing. It’s supposed to be gentlemanly to offer dibs on the bed,” I shrugged, mildly perplexed at what sleeping on the couch had to do with being ‘gentlemanly’, “I don’t have a problem if you want to keep her company, Fluffy.”

“Hey – why don’t you sleep with me too?,” Bethany broke out in a smile at finding a substitute stuffed animal to sleep with, “I feel bad stealing your bed.”

Fluffy and I looked at each other and shrugged.

It beat sleeping on the couch, I guess, so the three of us ended up jumping under the blankets together with Fluffy in between us.

I don’t know why, but once I’d settled under the blankets and Bethany had wrapped her arms and legs around Fluffy, I became oddly aware of Bethany’s proximity to me – maybe it was because the bed was rocking so much as the girl and cat shifted about, trying to find a comfortable position. I could tell Fluffy wasn’t too happy at being constrained, but put up with the blonde hanging onto him and making disturbing odd girl noises under her breath that sounded like ‘guehehehe’, a not quite giggle of satisfaction.

I turned my back on the desperate looking orange cat in the clutches of the girl whom had seemingly turned into an octopus, and decided that going a night without the furred concrete lump lying on top of me was worth the sacrifice.

No sooner than I’d closed my eyes with a grin on my lips at Fluffy’s plight as the girl wrestled with him, than I heard something scuttling around suddenly in the room.

“A Mouse!,” Fluffy exclaimed suddenly, renewing his struggle at the excuse to make an escape from the blonde little fiend bent on molesting him...cats are like that, they tend to avoid people whom are interested in them and make for the poor bastard who ignores them with the cat allergy, “Hey, let me go get it before it escape!”

Fluffy likes prowling the dark, hunting mice.

“Ugh – a mouse?,” Bethany let go of the fitfully squirming cat, whom scrambled over me and jumped off the bed as the girl transferred her grip to me as I sat up, “I hate mice.”

I actually prefer it when Fluffy’s sleeping on me – at least then, I can rest comfortable in the knowledge I won’t be waking up to a surprise on the pillow...though since Fluffy and I started being able to understand each other lately, I like to think he’s kicked the habit of leaving gifts for me to discover. The big orange cat quickly located the source of the rustling noise, peering under the dresser where a pair of dim malevolent red eyes peered up at him...then another pair of eyes opened up on either side of the existing pair...then two huge eyes on top of the row of four.

Fluffy froze apprehensively as the eyes under the dark shadow of the dresser indicated that this was not a mouse, while Bethany directed the dim beam of the Penlite to the cat, just as the ‘Thing’ launched itself at the big orange cat.

“MRRRMMM!,” Fluffy’s cream was muffled as a grey furred hand wrapped around his head, despite his last ditch leap backwards. The orange cat stumbled around with muffled screams as he clawed desperately on the grey furred carapace of the thing covering his face.

Bethany added her own screams to the cacophony as she dropped her borrowed Penlite in favour of wrapping herself around my with limpet like terror. The Penlight decided it wasn’t going to co-operate with the abuse, and the battery gave out after it rolled off the bed and hit the floor as Fluffy crashed to the ground in the dim light of from outside leaking through the glass French doors, his paws scrabbling at the creepy ‘fingers’ wrapped around his head as he rolled back and forth in a life or death struggle, his hind ways kicked and drummed on the parquetry.

Bethany screamed in squeaky high pitched horror, her arms locked in a tenacious a choke hold around my neck as I was locked in my own life and death struggle trying to pry the blonde off.

And then the cat shuddered and and made choking noises, lying on his back sprawled in a very un-catlike fashion, as the grey furred ‘thing’ vigorously humped his face.

“Squee – SQUEE!,” the creature screamed triumphantly, which Bethany and I could now see was a really big grey furred spider.

“Nnnngh!,” Bethany stopped screaming as she began gasping in air rapidly, now traumatised beyond vocalising her terror as her arms around my neck became a death grip keeping me between her and the spider thing doing something nasty to Fluffy’s face.

The spider bared its fangs in a caricature of an orgasmic grin...then popped into ectoplasmic goo as it injected itself into its orange furred victim, splattering the parquetry in fluid which in the dim light looked ominously like blood.

The round eyed horrified cat’s limbs and tail twitched in eldritch unnatural positions ala demonically possessed feline, coughing ectoplasmic slime from his mouth reminiscent of a recent film called ‘The Exorcist’ – so I hear, I’ve never seen it myself, before he suddenly jack knifed onto his paws, and ran – hit the wall where he scrabbled for purchase, and proceeded to run right up it and along the ceiling like some kind of funhouse horror movie trope.

The trembling cat came to a stop next to the light fixture, his eyes round with terror as his slime splattered head darted around looking for the next horror out to face rape an innocent virgin cat, before he looked ‘up’ at us upon realising he was crouched next to the lights on the ceiling.

Bethany trembled as she hyperventilated, then her arms went slack as she went limp behind me.

I pried her arms off around my neck, and began gratefully sucking air as a shocked and shaking Fluffy on the ceiling opened his mouth, “Squee?”

Eyes...three pairs of un-feline eyes bereft of any mammalian qualities, popped out on the cat’s orange furred face where Fluffy’s eyes began rolling around unnaturally like a possessed cat.

“Stop – STOP!,” Fluffy squealed in high pitched horror as the demonic entity possessing his body took over, “Vertigo! You’re making me sick! Waaaugh! NOOOOoooo! Wahahahaaaaaa!”

“Fluffy! Don’t kick it out! – You’ll lose a chunk of your Soul if you rip it out!,” I cringed as the cat screamed, as he descended from the ceiling on spider-cat’ silk webbing being extruded from his...I winced, the demonic spider had appropriated Fluffy’s reproductive organ as a spinneret – I felt my own boyhood shrink in sympathy as the cat clutched himself with his forepaws to lessen the strain from hanging from his privates while I jumped out of bed and hastened to catch my orange furred buddy and relieve the pressure, “Hang it there!”

“Wrong . Fucking. Words,” the cat swore as he latched onto me with claws, panting with a wild eyed look as his ‘spinneret’ snipped off the thread which dangled from the ceiling, then began sobbing from the traumatising experience as he squirmed and unashamedly checked himself out as tears leaked out of his eyes, “Ohoh...ohoh...ohohohohoh, it stings, It STINGS! I – I‘ve been face raped by a giant demon bug! I’ll never feel clean again...I – I’ve been Possessed!”

“Wut?!?,” Bethany gasped in outrage at the missed opportunity, flopping back to consciousness, “Fluffy got a pet demon too!?!”

After Fluffy came to an understanding with his new tenant and washed the goop off his fur, an unhappy Bethany insistently lead a search for another demon after finding fresh batteries for the Penlite. While we didn’t find any other ‘demonic’ entities lurking in the shadows she could convince to Possess her, Grampa managed to sleep through the whole thing on the other side of the house, and hadn’t come to investigate while the three of us crept through the house looking into dark corners.

On the plus side, after seeing the tangible side benefits of demonic possession – Fluffy could now walk on walls and extrude webbing, though he really preferred not to, it got me wondering...what could MY demon wombat do?

Well, after some experimenting, I found I had a strong affinity for ‘feeling’ and manipulating metals in a way which I hadn’t before...also making holes, though I didn’t investigate that particular ability in the house. The demonically augmented metal manipulating ability was quite engrossing on its own.

Bethany lost out on finding a demon of her own, but she got a consolation prize of a pair of miniature cupro-nickel sculptures of a spider and a wombat, made from two 50c pieces I had been saving in my drawer for a rainy day, while I experimented with my new ability before we managed to get to sleep after the excitement.

Sure, demon wombat skills mightn’t have been as cool as walking on the ceiling, but it had a lot of potential.

Unknown to Fluffy and I who thought we’d made it clear our resident demons they shouldn’t eat anything unless we okayed it first, Bethany was radiating enough peeved disappointment at being the odd person out of the evening’s Possessions, that Squee the Spider and Snarf the Wombat whom were roosting on the cat and I, both extended psychic tendrils to ‘nibble’ on the girl’s subconscious emotive sense of deprivation.

From a demonic standpoint, ‘nibbling’ isn’t ‘eating’ I suppose – it’s not full on Possession, and there are a surprising number of spirits wandering around and harmlessly nibbling and moving on.

* * *


	14. Omake - An Ancient Grudge

...Ori Galaxy...tens of millions of years ago...

The story begins with an iconic ‘Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away...’

It just didn’t end there, because neither stories nor life stops, due to impatient people leafing through the pages of history to skip to the last paragraph, to read how things turn out – there are always two sides to a coin, and just because the ending is a head or a tail, does not describe the contexts how or why the coin was flipped in the first place.

What may be perceived as a triumph by one side, may be looked upon as a tragedy by the other.

Or, it may even be perceived as a tragedy by all sides, winners and losers both.

The Sundering of the Ori species, was just such an event...and as a smaller branch of the humanoid species fled the Origin home galaxy in the aftermath of the dispute which had cloven the Ori, another parting was taking place upon another plane of reality where mortal flesh had ascended to a trans-humanist state of sentient energies.

If the two groups of Ascended beings could be distilled to their essence, then they’d have been a patriarchal middle aged man, and an angry young woman having an argument.

“You are making a grave mistake in demanding this parting, you shall only repeat the errors we have learned at so great a cost,” the Patriarch sadly shook his head, “The path your followers tread, can only lead to destruction and ruin in a finite universe. We have walked that road so many times before, and it has always ended in ruin and destruction.”

“And we have always risen from our ashes, the fire burns and consumes, and yet it prepares the way to rebirth,” the young woman retorted, “The Circle has always served our Peoples well. Who cares if in the rises and falls that people die – it is the way of things, the Circle of our fates where we are born, live in our moment of Glory, then die as we are meant to – not this abomination your kind propose, to wallow in stagnation in an eternal peace.”

“The Circle has also destroyed many whom have not risen in this cycle, the fires burned too brightly and consumed that there is no rebirth - there was no life in the aftermath, just destruction. This galaxy is a testimony to the destruction the Circle has wrought – we as a species stand alone, in this once vibrant and thriving corner of the universe. Look at what we’ve become, having emerged victorious from the last phase of destruction the Circle brings...our Fire has become a disease, too powerful in its cleansing that nothing lives in its aftermath,” the Patriarch shook his head, “The rise and fall of the Circle may bring us to new heights, but it has struck us low this cycle that our people are reduced to and handful of worlds, and even there they scrabble for subsistence in the ruins of our works...it is heart rending, to see how far we have fallen.”

“It was our Freedom to choose our Fate. Our Choice to make,” the young woman tilted her chin up, “And WE, have Prevailed in Victory, vanquishing all contest before us to preserve our own, to see another day. To deny the Freedom to choose, is an unnatural tyranny you impose upon our peoples”

“We have murdered an entire galaxy living by the freedom of the Circle, that will now take perhaps millions years to reconstitute. To export this abomination to other galaxies is unconscionable, yet this is what you would have us do...If this is what you think is Victory, then I pray that there will never again be such a horror,” the Patriarch looked away, saddened and disgusted that the woman would not see, “Can you not bend a little and weep for all the lifeless worlds, and know that should we fail to remember and learn from our Origin, then we are Damned to repeat this travesty over and over again until we are nought but ashes.”

“I have Faith in the Circle you discard so easily,” the young woman huffed indignantly at being challenged so stubbornly, “No matter the destruction it brings. Life finds a way.”

“There is truly no room in your existence, for anyone but you, is there...no empathy, no compassion, no remorse, just your own selfish Freedom,” the Patriarch shook his head wearily, “No matter who you destroy in your sociopathic rampage for freedom and glory, you find no fault in yourself but blame the Circle for what transpires. You, are the epitome of our Evils...go, and take with you the Circle you so cherish, for we of the Origin have rejected its premises. Our symbol shall be a Circle Broken, we will destroy ourselves no more – but know this, should our paths cross again, we Will bring you to heel, to instil upon your craven followers the word of Origin, even should we have to resort to your vile means of destructive ruinous war to accomplish it.”

“And we shall welcome the contest when and if it comes, though you shall not emerge victorious stagnating in this broken ruined galaxy in which you hide,” the young woman replied arrogantly, “We shall discard our Origin and come here not again. You shall henceforth know us know as the Altera, in recognition of our parting of ways – moreover, we take from you the Circle you so easily malign, and make it Our symbol that you make know Us when we stand triumphant and victorious before you.”

“Leave, and may your shadow never darken this galaxy as long as the Fire of our Origin burns to remove the taint of your ignorance. I do not fear your threat, for your precious Circle will have long destroyed you before your Altera rise enough to challenge us,” the Patriarch said firmly, brushing away the insult, “We Ori have a galaxy to rebuild, and we will not allow the Circle to ruin it again.”

“Honoured, are the Altera,” the woman smiled icily at the dismissal and rejection, “We will prevail in our Freedoms and return from our exile, to see you of the Origin eat your precious fire.”

“Hallowed, are the Ori,” the Patriarch replied blandly, waving off the threat, “I’d welcome you to my fire in peace, but you’d probably piss on it and douse the light to throw us all into darkness in your ignorance.”

The two communities of Ascended beings of now differing ideologies smiled thinly at each other, turned, and parted ways.

And thus a species was sundered into two.

Honoured, are the Altera...Hallowed, are the Ori.

So it was written, in the Book of Origin.

* * *


	15. Possessing the Morning After

...Australia...Earth...1974...

“How was your stay next door, who are your new friends?,” Gregory Stewart asked his daughter as he carried the girl back home late in the morning after indulging in one last session of affection with his wife, “Did you have breakfast?”

“Yes Daddy, Grampa made us siu mai, har gow, and char siu bao for breakfast – and we also had lots of yummy things to eat at dinner after bath time and Sammy let me borrow his spare jumpsuit. Sammy’s parents own a restaurant, and they get yummy things to eat all the time,” Bethany replied happily, as her father let himself through the front gates and carried her up the path to the front door where his wife Kirsten was waiting with a serene smile of a thoroughly de-stressed woman, “I had lots of fun playing with Sammy and Fluffy. Can I play with them again tomorrow, Mommy?”

Gregory nodded approving as he set his daughter down on the porch and the young girl strolled through the front door to give Kirsten a hug – old man Sung hadn’t skimped on feeding his daughter by the sounds of things, which was fifty bucks well spent considering the amount of uninterrupted quality time he’d spent with his wife over night and into the late morning.

“Maybe if you’re a good girl and behave, Mr Sung and Sammy might invite you over to play again,” Kirsten replied serenely as Bethany nodded seriously, “We’ll see if something can’t be arranged soon, if you’re well behaved the next few days.”

“Sammy and Fluffy said I’m okay to come over and play whenever I want, ,” Bethany nodded seriously as she let go of her mother and stepped back as she smiled up at her father, “Snarf and Squee like me too, even if I’m not as strong as Sammy and Fluffy for them to be with all the time – but they said I’ll be getting stronger now they’ve met me.”

“Oh? Are Snarf and Squee big cats like Fluffy?,” Kirsten asked, having met the Sung’s abnormally large friendly fluffy orange cat yesterday, “He seemed very friendly.”

“Fluffy and Sammy sleep together, and they slept in bed with me last night because the bed in the guest room didn’t have a mattress. Snarf is a wombat with brown, and Squee is a giant furry grey spider,” Bethany explained as she dug into her pocket to show off two metal miniatures of a cute ovoid looking wombat standing on its stubby hind paws, and an oddly cute looking cartoonish spider on the palm of her tiny hand, “This is how they look like, but they’re much bigger.”

Ah, both parents jumped to conclusions that they were stuffed animals.

“Did Mr Sung give you those?,” Kirsten asked as she examined the surprisingly detailed models of a somewhat stylised wombat and spider.

“Sammy made them from fifty cent coins,” Bethany shook her head. “It was really neat new magic Sammy could do with Snarf’s help, because Snarf is a wombat shaped earth spirit.”

“And what kind of spirit is Squee?,” Gregory’s estimation of Benjamin Sung as a quality babysitter went up as he picked up the metal miniatures for a closer look at his daughter’s new treasures. He’d often read fairytales to his daughter, but to find that old man Sung also encouraged such childhood imagination and went that extra length to procure props to support the make believe, was an unexpected plus, “Were you scared of the big spider?”

Bethany nodded with a soft snort as she mimed fangs and crouched in a way which was probably meant to seem menacing, but just came off as precious, “Squee is a scary spider with big teeth, and he looks even more scary with six glowing eyes if you don’t know he’s there in the dark – but he’s actually a good guardian spirit who protects Sammy’s house from cockroaches, rats and other pests. He’s very good friends with Fluffy now, who can do spider things like walk up walls and spin cat silk, which Fluffy doesn’t like doing much.”

Gregory found himself amused at his daughter’s entertaining retelling of old man Sung’s imaginary story about friendly spirits, which supposedly protected the Sung household – it wsn’t a bad device to get children use to the dark. His time in Vietnam, as part of the SASR before retiring from the army for a civilian life had exposed him to some of the oriental religious beliefs, which were quite different to the Judaeo-Christian system which focused worship on one singular God.

Gregory handed the metal miniatures back to his daughter, who put them back safely in her pocket, “You take care of Snarf and Squee, and put them in a safe place to keep the monster in the dark away.”

“Um, Daddy, Snarf and Squee ARE the monsters in the dark,” Bethany corrected her father firmly, “They said they’ll look after me and keep the other monsters and pests away while I’m sleeping, so I don’t have to worry about being scared of the dark anymore.”

Oh, well done, Gregory thought with silent applause at the prospect of his daughter’s tendency to wander into the marital bedroom at odd hours of the night being cured, or perhaps alleviated enough that the paranoia the girl was silently being exposed to an awkward parental moment which required some fast explaining, that she hadn’t really seen what she’d seen was in order.

Then again, the stress free quality time of having Bethany out of the house which he could spend with Kirsten without concern about the young girl asking what they were doing, also had its appeal. Perhaps old man Sung would be amenable to making the babysitting arrangement a permanent weekly thing, as he wasn’t aware the Asian was actively working for a living given the amount of time he was spending at home taking care of his grandson Sammy.

“So, Snarf and Squee are going to be moving in with us?,” Kirsten enquired with a smile.

“Well – just a little bit of them. They’re kind of like jellyfish, so if you take a little bit and feed them, they’ll grow into a new jellyfish,” Bethany explained, smiling back at her mother, “They said they’ll keep watch out for me until they can grow me my own pet Squishy to play with.”

Both Gregory and Kirsten blinked, “Squishy?”

“Sammy says calling Snarf and Squee demons has too much bad religious baggage for good spirits, that might make them start acting evil if I keep pushing bad thoughts on them,” Bethany shrugged with a proud smile, “I invented the name Squishy, because Snarf and Squee don’t have any bones inside their bodies so they’re more like water balloons – you know, ‘squishy’?”

“That’s very smart of you,” Kirsten complimented her daughter’s initiative, and marvelled at the Sung’s innovative positive psychology to remove her daughter’s random fear of the dark. It had sat in the back of the minds of both parents that leaving Bethany to sleep over in a strange place would have had detrimental effects, but apparently their daughter had more mental fortitude than they’d expected, “So Snarf the Wombat and Squee the Spider are your new Squishy friends.”

Bethany smiled and nodded enthusiastically as her parents seemingly got it, “Can I go put Snarf and Squee away in my room?”

Both parents smiled and nodded as their brave little daughter confidently wandered off to her bedroom, after her first night away from home and parents. The young girl seemed to have matured significantly after her stay over.

“They grow up so fast,” Gregory sighed, putting his arm affectionately around Kirsten’s waist, “Want to try for a second one?”

“We should make babysitting arrangements with Benjamin Sung for Friday week,” Kirsten replied with a knowing smile, “We wouldn’t want Bethany interrupting while we’re playing now, would we?”

* * *

Bethany placed the metal miniature wombat and spider on her dresser and stared with intent expectation.

The two shiny metal models stood there with inanimate lifelessness, before the shards of the eldritch creatures calved off from the original, possessing the ‘golems’ cranked their heads in Bethany’s direction a moment, before looking around her bedroom.

“Snarf?”

“Squee!”

Bethany looked in the direction which the pair of eldritch abominations according to Christian scriptures, focused on the blue and yellow Parramatta sock slug which her mother had made for her, to keep the monsters in the dark at bay.

“You want Groo the sock slug?,” Bethany asked, as both miniature wombat and spider golems nodded affirmatively. The young blonde quickly fetched the inanimate plushy sock slug, and placed it on the dresser where the two golems paused, then moved towards the unsuspecting guardian of Bethany’s sleep, “What are you – oh.”

The miniature metal wombat and spider disintegrated into so much copper and nickel dust, much to Bethany’s alarm at the self destruction of her new gifts. The metal dust stirred and melded together, before puffing over to cover the sock slug in so many twinkly particles.

“Oh, no,” Bethany gasped as her new friends disappeared in front of her wide green eyes, just when she’d met them.

The sock slug suddenly shuddered, then the button eyes sewn into Groo’s ‘face’ rose on flexible stalks and morphed into ping pong ball style eyes which blinked at a startled Bethany, as the rest of the sock slug underwent another transition as the striped blue and yellow banding shifted to a horizontal trim pattern – another shudder, and sock slug’s woolly woven pelt became a silky waterproof plush fur texture.

The new slug demon checked out its new body approvingly as a pair of pseudopods extruded from its sides to pat itself over experimentally.

“Are – are you my new pet Squishy?,” Bethany asked in a hushed excited whisper at the abrupt change in circumstances.

“Groo!,” the blue and yellow slug bobbed its eye stalks affirmatively as it located the source of the week empathic feelings, and extended it’s pseudopods towards the excited young girl whom reached to pick up her old but now very different plushy friend. The pair of ‘tentacles’ caressed Bethany’s face as it fed on the little girl’s excitement, “Grooooo!”

“You’ve possessed Groo the Slug! – So this is what you meant by helping me grow my own Squishy,” Bethany exclaimed as she rationalised what had happed, and hugged her pet Squishy to her cheek affectionately, “You’re my little friend, aren’t you Groo, aren’t you?”

“Groo!,” the demonic entity patted Bethany’s cheek in a possessive fashion as it fed on the meagre portions...cultivating its food source was going to be a priority and had to be done carefully least it be depleted to the point of sustaining irreparable damage, but there wasn't any rush, and it wasn’t like the young girl which the minute shards of Snarf and Squee had spawned off and had attached themselves to the previous night, was doing much with her soul, anyway...

* * *


	16. Consorting with De...ahem, Squishies

...Australia...Earth...1974...

In the house next door, a young girl was being gratuitously raped by a demonic entity in a flurry of slimy tentacles. Her parents walked by outside her shut bedroom door which was sealed by eldritch magics which muted sounds from escaping the room, oblivious to their little daughter’s squeals and pleas behind closed doors for mercy as flexible prehensile pseudopods slithered under clothes along smooth sweaty unblemished young flesh.

Her fair tiny feet drummed on her bed as she struggled against the tentacles wrapped around her limbs and held her down, spread eagled and vulnerable as other tentacles from the slobbering fiend ran along exploring the young flesh of her little body. The young virginal little maiden wrestled vainly against the molestation violating her, body and soul, her blonde hair splayed like an angelic halo on her pillow as she shook her head back and forth in futile denial, howling tearfully against the violation.

“Wahahahaaaahhhaahahaa!,” Bethany Stewart squealed tearfully in helpless shrieking laughter as the tentacles found the soles of her kicking feet, on the losing side of a tickle fight after discovering Groo the Slug’s belly was a giant foot, and about as sensitive to being tickled as her own feet, “NOOOooooo!”

The ‘Squishy’ ran tentacle tips around the four year old girl’s sensitive rib cage, gratuitously feeding on the empathic feelings it teased out from the helplessly laughing child struggling on the bed and taking its cues from the young girl’s strong empathic thoughts.

So it was that a pseudopod seemingly ‘slipped’ its grasp in what might appear to be a miscalculation of dominance, where upon the laughing child freed her right arm and began desperately raking her wiggling fingers along the exposed belly of the tentacle monster tickling her into submission.

“Groo-oo-oo-ooo!,” the sock slug’s open maw gaped in a macabre parody of slobbering sluggy laughter under the retaliation with eye stalks bobbing, it’s other tentacles loosening their grasp on the sweat slicked little girl whom took the opportunity to pounce.

There was much desperate struggling, filled with shrieks and squeals of laughter as the young girl rolled back and forth on her bed in the clutches of the inhuman tentacle fiend molesting her ribs and the soles of her feet – the bright green eyed girl enjoying the rough and tumble play with her new friend, whom was quite happily ‘eating her up’ as it fed on a very tasty empathic food source.

However, the exertions made the two protagonists bent on tickling each other into submission, roll right off the bed with a thump...and then there was silence for a moment, before a little girl’s small limb flopped back onto the bed which she used as a support to haul her torso up before flopping over with on trembling weakened unsteady legs dangling over the side, after her ordeal.

“Gueheheheh,” Bethany panted with a slightly trickle of saliva escaping the corner of her lips as her tired legs trembled like wet noodles, weakly turning her head to the visibly larger blue and yellow sock slug whom had dragged itself back onto the bed and copied her weariness from the exertions they’d both been engrossed in during their play...then the young blonde broke out in a huge smile as she reached over and petted the plush silky fur affectionately, “You’re my bestest little friend, ever.”

“Groo,” the Squishy curled an exploratory pseudopod around the girl’s outstretched fragile little hand in what might have been construed as mutual affection by the human mind, but was really just a Squishy feeding response as it tasted the tired satiated ‘happiness’ of a slightly stronger soul which had gotten some much needed exercise, which the young girl was radiating after indulging in unrestrained playing.

‘Consorting’ with Demons, isn’t what the monotheistic Judaeo-Christian religions make it out to be – the other side really aren’t naturally inclined to Evil by any means, but merely taking their cues from the humans who think naughty thoughts of them.

It’s really dependent on whether your mind hasn’t been calcified into thinking a certain way which adults tend to perceive the world. You’re perfectly safe if you’re mentally flexible enough to get out of the Thucydides trap of believing the worst of your neighbours...you’re kind of fucked if you’re a sexually repressed nun or a Catholic schoolgirl, though.

A young child’s expectations and outlook on life is very different than that of the grownups who’re carting around a great deal of baggage. What an adult’s subconscious religiously indoctrinated fear of the supernatural and strangeness may be perceived as a threat to be subjugated...is simply a child’s wonderful new imaginary friend to play with and explore.

The difference between a Christianised ‘Demon’ and a ‘Squishy’ type imaginary friend, is purely their diet of thoughts and beliefs they consume from humanity.

* * *

“Hey, Fluffy,” I said, lying on the grass in the backyard under the pomegranate tree, next to the big fluffy orange cat who was soaking up sunlight beside me, “Do you get the feeling something weird’s going on with us?”

“Nya...nothing springs to mind,” Fluffy commented as he absently groomed the big furry grey spider between his tufted orange paws with his tongue, “Then again, we haven’t even been Awake for a week yet, so it’s a bit difficult to tell?”

“I get the feeling we weren’t like this, you know, ‘before’,” I frowned thoughtfully, adjusting the brown furred wombat I was using as a convenient pillow, “Don’t you think it’s strange that nobody we’ve seen on TV are like us?”

“Bethany thought we were normal after she found out about us, and she didn’t think it was strange to find Squishies running around either. That book on witches you’re using as a reference manual also confirms there’s people like us out there somewhere,” Fluffy mused, petting the spider Squishy whom squee’d soflty with an oddly pleased look on its grey furred arachnid face, “You can’t believe everything you see on TV, I think. Who’s to say what’s really real, or just fake news on the boob tube?”

The cat did pose several good points.

The problem was that Fluffy and I’d only been acquiring information for less than a week, and most of it was chaotic if not outright contradictory. Take for instance, the morning cartoons which both Fluffy and I discarded as primary sources fairly early, which while they did display a great deal of unrealistic stylised anthropomorphic animals interacting with humans, were totally absent from TV shows and the news – more to the point, the Encyclopaedia Britannica was devoid of such references as talking animals too.

There just wasn’t a great deal of hard evidence that talking cats were normal, which is why Fluffy had prudently elected to keep his trap shut around Grampa after an initial faux pas demanding juice the other day.

The reference book on witches I’d been using as a guide, implied that adults really didn’t take well to things which disrupted their illusion of ‘normal’...whatever normal was.

Still, having Bethany dropped on us with some very different viewpoints, had woken Fluffy and I up to the notion that we were group thinking things to see things from a certain perspective. Bethany had said that her father had told her that only little children who believed in magic could see it – once you became an adult, the magic ‘dies’.

That actually gelled with the alien thoughts and concepts we were getting from the resident Squishies, whom had given Fluffy and I the notion that they knew others of their kind who interacted with human children as ‘imaginary friends’, but after a certain age where children began interacting with each other and being indoctrinated by their parents that ‘fables’ weren’t real, seem to just ‘edit’ Squishy kind out of their world view and become blind to the presence of their once close imaginary friends.

It was kind of like brainwashing themselves to believe certain things didn’t exist – a bizarre form of self induced hypnosis to ignore the Squishies tip toeing around the room.

“Makes you wonder whether there’s a conspiracy going on in the background,” I mused thoughtfully, feeling relaxed with the supernatural furred water pillow under my head.

“Hrrrm?,” Fluffy paused playing with his spider, the both of them looked over at me speculatively at the off the wall statement from my internal monologue, “I’m not following you?”

“Was Bethany right about all adults not being able to see magic, or is it just some of them?,” I wondered aloud as Snarf squirmed under my head to a more comfortable position, where he could run his claws through my hair, “We don’t have enough information why grownups supposedly can’t see magic or magical creatures.”

“Oh,” Fluffy mused thoughtfully, “I suppose we can just ask Grampa whether he can see Snarf and Squee or not.”

“Eh?,” I asked at the cat’s bluntly pragmatic suggestion, which seemed all too obvious now it was out in the open, “Oh – um...why are we trying to hide things from Grampa, anyway?”

“Because,” Fluffy’s tail lashed in thought a moment as he pawed his eight legged squeeing mouse substitute, his ears twitched as he came to conclusion and got up, where the grey furred spider the cat was toying with unashamedly clambered up onto his back with an equally determined arachnid pose, “We’ve been reading too many books telling us what we should think, instead of relying on what we actually know. Come on, Sam, let’s see Grampa.”

The cat put his paw on the thought which had been tugging the back of my mind, and I got up off the grass where the wombat I’d been using as a pillow followed suite and dusted itself off in that ‘tired old person’ way I’d seen my Grampa do. The momentarily distracted beady eyed wombat began to wander off when I grabbed Snarf, and carried it under the arm pits in an awkward hug after Fluffy and Squee whom had headed back to the house to see Grampa.

* * *

A dry mouthed Benjamin Llewellyn Sung stared at the frankly heart palpitating giant grey tarantula with big fangs sitting on the family cat’s back. The hairy grey thing was so big that Benjamin had seen smaller commercial mud crab for sale at the Sydney fish markets when he bothered going down to Pyrmont to get fresh seafood.

In fact, he’d been contemplating spending some of the $50 windfall he’d gotten from Gregory Stewart the day previous on just that very thing, when Fluffy the Cat and his grandson Sammy had wandered in from the backyard where they’d disappeared to after the neighbour had come to pick up their daughter late in the morning...however, the cat and grandson were accompanied by a giant grey spider and a cute chubby brown wombat.

To be honest, Benjamin had never seen any wombats where he lived in the Sydney as the western suburbs area was pretty well urbanised – redbacks and funnel web spiders on the other hand, were something to keep a vigilant eye out for that Benjamin made a habit of checking for infestations out in the backyard where his grandson played.

“Grampa...you can see them?,” Sammy exclaimed, hugging the brown furred wombat to his chest whom Benjamin suddenly noticed had some really wicked long looking claws as it squirmed and waved its digging appendages in his grandson’s awkward hold, “Fluffy and I weren’t sure if you could see magical animals or not, because you’re a grownup.”

“Um, yes – of course I can,” Benjamin idly wondered where he put that old cricket bat – before suddenly recalling he’d thrown it away a few months ago, “Magical animals?”

“Yes, that’s Squee the Spider on Fluffy’s back, and this is Snarf the Wombat,” the four year old proudly introduced his new friends, “Say hello to Grampa.”

“Squee!”

“Snarf!”

Both the giant grey spider and chubby brown wombat acknowledged, waving forelimbs at Benjamin in unison at the introduction, which gave him pause that initial surface appearances of bringing dangerous animals into the house might be misleading.

“How...nice,” Benjamin grasped feebly at the nice normal westernised world view he’d entertained notions of living in, slipping from his grasp in favour of the weird oriental model his own father had insisted existed, “Where did you find them?”

“They’ve been living around the house in the background,” the cat spoke, looking up at Benjamin whom resisted the urge to jump up on a kitchen chair as his legs felt altogether too rubbery at the moment from the initial adrenaline rush, in favour of a spreading beatific bright eyed smile of a man whose fight or flight response has been totally overwhelmed, “We invited them out to play, but thought you might have a few issues if they began running around the background.”

“Oh – I thought that was your voice last night with the kids,” Benjamin’s wide serene smile was fixed on his lips as he nodded, more to himself than the cat as he’d been studiously ignoring the new squeaky voice in the background accompanying his grandson around the house the last few days, “Your English has improved, Fluffy.”

“Nya,” the cat responded proudly at the compliment, as he bashfully patted a paw against his furred cheek with a tufted paw, “You’ve no idea how much enunciations hurt the cheek muscles when I started copying what I was hearing from the TV – bit my tongue a few times before I got the hang of not sounding like a complete bogan.”

Benjamin took a deep calming breath that there didn’t seem to be an immediate danger, “Okay – but where did your new friends come from?”

The spider and wombat paused, then the former bounced off Fluffy’s back as the wombat squirmed out of Sammy’s hug, where upon the two supernatural creatures rushed off to the kitchen where the sounds of rummaging in drawers and cupboards could be heard, before the pair appeared back again with the spider wielding a pair of chop sticks and the wombat a cardboard tube used to wrap tinfoil around.

The wombat sat down on its stubby rear end and put the cardboard tube to its mouth as the spider reared up on it two hind limbs with the chopsticks raised over its head...which it began tapping rhythmically as the wombat began blowing into its makeshift didgeridoo. The grey spider began dancing with jerky abrupt motions as it tapped the chopsticks above its head that were one to close their eyes, one could imagine Australian Aboriginals dancing to one of their traditional tunes.

Benjamin stared slackly for a few moments as his grandson and pet cat clapped along, before his adult mind caught up and made sense of things according to his own experiences, “Oh...Dreamtime – they’re Dreamtime spirits.”

“I suppose,” Sammy said as the spider and wombat dropped the charade they were playing out for Benjamin’s benefit, since they couldn’t speak to the elderly Asian directly nor communicate concepts and images into the old man’s brain since his soul was so fragile it might just break under the strain, “Bethany, Fluffy and I call them Squishy because they’re soft and don’t have bones. We think that Snarf is an Earth spirit while Squee is a guardian type who minds the house and keeps it safe.”

“Okaaaay,” Benjamin’s thoughts sluggishly stirred from their abused state of shock at his grandson’s understanding of the natures of the two very unnatural creatures, “So, not dangerous?”

“Nyerrre,” Fluffy wagged his head, “Only if you’re Catholic.”

“Squee and Snarf say they have friends who hang out in Churches, and they get strange around nuns and Catholic schoolgirls when they’re itchy,” Sammy replied with a frown, “What does scratching the itch have to do with making funny faces, Grampa?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Benjamin waved off the question in a responsible adult manner, and hastily changed the subject before more awkward explanations were called for, “So Squee’s a guardian spirit, and I can understand what that role might require, but what does an Earth spirit do?”

“He’s a walking metal detector,” Fluffy replied before Sammy could.

“Yeah, but Snarf can do so much more than detect metals – he can remove all the impurities too,” Sammy injected with an annoyed look at the cat, “He's not dangerous if you think nice thoughts at him, Grampa. Squishies don't know any better, so if you think they're going to hurt you strong enough then they'll just take it that you want them to.”

Benjamin nodded, paused, frowned as the explanation peculated through his neurons which fired up as his brow creased in contemplation at the implications, before his eyebrows twitched and rose over wide shocked eyes as he coughed.

“Wait right there,” Benjamin said as he rushed off to his bedroom, and came back a moment later with a simple gold band that was his wedding ring, which he placed on the living room coffee table and thought very hard at the supernatural creature, “Can you find more metal like this and separate out the impurities?”

“Snarf,” the wombat, barked, placing it paw over the gold ring.

People wish to win the lotteries...sometimes it happens, if 'luck' is paying attention, but who's to say it isn't just a random hungry Squishy picking up on a tasty snack?

To Benjamin’s bated breath, the unholy memento of his hellish matrimony disintegrated into and parted into a puddle of gold liquid and a smaller puddle of silver, before both solidified again from the gold alloyed ring.

A smile slowly spread on Benjamin’s face, as it suddenly occurred to him how he could better spend that fifty dollar windfall which had landed in his pocket, courtesy of Gregory Stewart next door. Some petrol for the trusty old battered Landrover, investment in camping supplies for a day or two – and a potentially lucrative gold fossicking expedition with the grandson sprang to mind.

“Hey, little friend,” a smiling Benjamin reached out and patted the Earth Spirit’s squat flat head, any qualms about the supernatural quashed in the light of replenishing his depleted bank account, “Want to come camping with us?”

Snarf fed on Benjamin's abrupt shift of emotions of fear, uncertainty and trepidation, to elation and hope and leaned into the pats approvingly, "Snarf!"

* * *


	17. The Coven forms

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Bethany roused herself from sleep in the dawn of a new morning, her waking thoughts groping for the wisps of a terrible nightmare where she’d lived a horrible life where her parents had died in a car crash, and she lived alone in despair in her bed all the time, stuffing herself with sweets until she grew so fat she couldn’t even fit through the bedroom door anymore, that rescue people who found her stinking up the house had to make a hole in the roof and use a crane to lift her out.

The young blonde wrinkled her nose as she rubbed her eyes, “Where did THAT come from?”

Bethany decided she wouldn’t stay in bed given that particular nasty portent, throwing back her bedcovers and hopped out as she made her way to the bathroom, to brush her teeth and wash her face. Upon seeing her reflection in the mirror, Bethany noted Groo’s eye stalks protruding from the back of her head like a pair of antenna.

It was a mildly unnerving moment, then Bethany gathered her wits and reached behind her head to peel off the flattened furry slug whom was hugging the back of her skull, with a nasty wet ‘schlorrrrp’ sound which seemed to suck on her head.

“Good morning,” Bethany smiled at her friend, whom reinflated itself to its usual dimensions the moment she put it down on the sink.

“Groo,” eye stalks wiggled at her as the slug slithered up against the mirror to check itself out while Bethany bared her teeth to begin brushing, the eye stalks studied the girl brushing away, extrudeded an appendage with a brushlike attachment as it gaped open its mouth to display an unnerving sight of lamprey like jagged teeth copying the young blonde.

Bethany giggled unfazed at what should have been a menacing display, whilst the slug copied her in front of the mirror, brushing its fearsome rows of teeth with its toothbrush-like pseudopod.

During yesterday’s playing session where she got to know her pet Squishy better, Bethany had discovered that the sock slug could change its size, along with sprouting useful appendages with which it could switch on lights or open locked doors – and as demonstrated, even mimic a toothbrush.

The default size was a stuffed sock...but Bethany had experimentally got Groo to grow and shrink to various sizes. It was quite an interesting ability to inflate and deflate itself, though Bethany noted that it was also inconvenient as Groo also got too heavy to carry around if he grew too big – she’d amusingly discovered that fact after getting Groo to inflate itself while sitting on top of her to the point only her head, arms and legs were sticking out just to find out what it felt like.

Sock size was convenient, and the slug had seemingly agreed with her prognosis to stay that size as it was convenient for Groo to ‘revert’ and pretend to be a stuffed toy.

Case point being when her father came in while Bethany was washing her face, affectionately grabbed the protesting child as he proceeded to give her a beard stubble burn. Bethany grabbed Groo whom was lying beside the sink glaring at the man, and retreated without her father being any wiser to the danger he’d literally been staring in the face.

* * *

“Mommy – Daddy’s being a creepy tickle monster again,” Bethany stated flatly as she came into the kitchen in the morning, which Kirsten was mildly surprised to find her daughter hauling around the sock slug she’d made for her as a panacea against the dark when the girl was younger – she’d thought Bethany had grown out of that phase, “Can I go and play with Fluffy and Sammy today?”

“No, the Sungs have gone out,” Kirsten said as her daughter sat down at her place at the table for breakfast with the orange juice in the plastic cup, and helped herself to some of the pancakes...and then some more pancakes for a total of four, which was much more than she usually ate, “There are hungry children in Ethiopea who are starving, so don’t take more than you can eat, it’s bad to waste food.”

“Yes Mommy,” Bethany chimed obediently to her mother’s admonishment with disappointment at finding her new friends next door had gone out, and spoke to the sock slug she was carrying with her as she stabbed a thick pancake on her fork which she bit into, before trying to feed the sock slug, “Groo and I are really hungry today, aren’t we?”

Kirsten snorted softly in amusement at her daughter’s make believe friend, turning her back on Bethany as she heard her husband coming to breakfast after brushing his teeth and shaving off the beard stubble. Bethany’s description of her father as a ‘creepy tickle monster’ had a lot to do with an affectionate fatherly stubble rub, which all children seemed to universally dread.

Behind the redhead mother’s back, the ‘sock slug’ inflated and sprang to life and cranked open its maw, a tongue shot out to latch onto the pancake on Bethany’s fork, before swiftly retracting the morsel into its mouth which snapped shut to the young blonde’s astonished delighted grin at finding a new aspect to her Squishy friend, before deflating into ‘sock slug’ camouflage.

“Remember to chew your food, eating too fast can make you choke,” Kirsten glanced at her daughter with the empty fork in hand, as her husband Gregory made his appearance.

“Yes Mommy,” Bethany replied smugly, putting her finger across her lips at the ‘inanimate’ slug.

“Oh, pancakes – it’s been a while,” Gregory Stewart said as he leaned in and gave his wife a morning smooch, “Honey, you’re so good to me.”

“Just a little thank you, for all the effort you put in lately,” Kirsten smiled affectionately, hugging her husband briefly, “Honey’s on the table, dear, go eat while the pancakes are hot.”

“Blech,” Bethany said, sticking her tongue out distastefully along with the possessed sock slug whom had absorbed enough of the young girl’s sentiments to copy the gesture, Groo quickly sucked in its tongue and deflated back to its usual lifeless camouflage before both parents could notice, as Bethany said, “See, that’s the difference between making kissy face and eating, Groo.”

Gregory sat down at the table and smiled at his daughter’s appetite as he helped himself to his wife’s cooking, “All those pancakes, are you sure you can eat all that?”

“Groo can help me eat it all,” Bethany said affirmatively, as she stabbed another pancake on her plate and took a big bite and began chewing demonstrably.

Kirsten put down the cup of coffee on the table and went back to cooking as her husband glanced appreciatively at her back with a smile, before dribbling some honey on the pancakes he’d put on his plate when he suddenly noticed that the pancake impaled on his daughter’s fork was gone. Bethany chewed with bright green eyes as he father watched her, then swallowed and smiled with a cherubic wide eyed innocence implying that nothing was unusual.

“Want some honey on your pancakes?,” Gregory asked, the uncanny valley sensation of something off which his time in the SASR in Vietnam had instilled in him.

Bethany shook her head with a frown as she stabbed another pancake, “No thanks, Daddy. I had a bad dream last night, eating too much sweets and sugar will turn me into a bloated fat pig.”

“Oh?,” Gregory enquired as he watched his daughter take a bite out of the fresh pancake, and chewed with a cute beaming smile, “That must have been a terrible dream.”

To which Bethany nodded firmly as she chewed with the pancake with a four year old’s bite taken out of it held upright on her fork. Gregory paused, then stuffed a pancake in his mouth to confirm his suspicions – it was hard going fitting an entire pancake into an adult’s mouth, let alone a much smaller four year old girl’s.

In fact, the effort made Gregory choke that he had to hastily wash it down with coffee.

“Greg, stop encouraging Bethany,” Kirsten admonished with exasperation, shaking her head at her husband’s childish antics, “Grow up, you aren’t a four year old.”

By the time Gregory looked up from choking down the honeyed pancake he’d stuffing into his mouth, pancake number three on his daughter’s fork had disappeared again.

“Hmmm – I want some honey after all,” Bethany hummed as she dribbled some honey onto the last pancake on her plate, which she took her time eating under her father’s now undiverted scrutiny.

The young blonde took her time cutting the pancake into little pieces, and eating slowly with a smile on her innocent face under her father’s watchful eyes as she washed down the food with orange juice from her plastic cup, while her inanimate sock slug companion staring blankly into the distance beside her.

* * *

Kirsten Stewart opened the front door after the doorbell range after her husband had left for work, to find a group of six little girls smiling up at her with tooth rotting saccharine bright eyed innocence. The girls were carrying an assortment of hessian potato bags, extendable fish and butterfly nets and clothes line, which suggested to the redhead mother they were up to some kind of mischief.

“Hi, can Bethany come out and play?,” the wholesome blue eyed blonde ringleader asked on behalf of her smiling little cohorts putting their best foot forward.

It took a moment for Kirsten to recognise the girls from the kindergarten her daughter had temporarily attended, while she’d been sick a few weeks ago. The bout of the flu had been bad enough that it had required a stay in hospital, until the fluids had cleared out of her lungs – where Gregory had pragmatically enrolled Bethany at day care while he’d gone to work, until she’d gotten well enough to be discharged from hospital and resume being a full time mother.

Day care, was an expensive proposition, and given the choice of being at home to take care of her daughter or out in the work force earning an extra income to pay for pre-school, Kirsten had chosen the option which allowed her to raise her daughter.

“Sure, please come inside,” Kirsten smiled, gratified that her reclusive stay at home daughter had friends who’d made the effort to come see her. Kirsten briefly looked in vain for the absent parental units who should have accompanied the group of young girls, and upon not finding them, just mentally shrugged and accepted the group of four year olds had come of their own initiative as per 70s era parental wisdom, “Bethany! Your friends are here to play!”

“What friends?,” the frowning green eyed blonde poked her head around the corner, paused a moment then brightened in recognition as she trotted out with Groo the Slug clutched in her arms, “Oh – hi, long time no see?”

The group of little girls trooped into the Stewart household, looking around the well appointed house while making approving little girl noises.

“Hi Bet,” Amelie Sorensen greeted amicably with wholesome blue eyed blondeness, as if she were welcoming a best friend she hadn’t seen for a while, “We heard there’s a pussycat infestation at old man Sung’s place, and thought you might want to help us catch some.”

“My Mom said Mrs Daniels called the Council about old man Sung’s house being overrun by kitties,” Monica Aoife O’Reilly nodded, sending her brown tresses bobbing as she held up the empty hessian potato bag, “We want to save some of them before the Council turns up.”

Kirsten stepped back and smirked as she discretely left the kids to their self appointed animal rescue mission, making a mental note to check on the stock of antiseptic and bandaids, rather than talk the group of little girls out of their adventure. The mindset of a mother in the 70s, was very different from that of the coming generations, whose tendency to bubble wrap their children from experiencing life for themselves produced overly sheltered kids whom their 70s era peers would have brutally judged as ‘kinda backward and retarded’.

“Oh, don’t bother, the kitties have all left except Fluffy who lives next door,” Bethany shook her head as she smiled thinly as she stepped forth into the group of girls, “And it’s not ‘old man Sung’, it’s ‘Grampa Sung’ – my friend Sammy lives next door.”

“Ah,” Amelie said with a little embarrassment at having inadvertently insulted Bethany, “Sorry, it’s just that everyone calls er – Grampa Sung’s house that.”

“You mean, the pussies have already escaped?,” the eager grey eyed blonde Tanya Armstrong deflated, propping herself on the long pole of the butterfly fishing net she’d appropriated from her father’s fishing gear, “Well, that’s a bust.”

“Are there any cats still prowling around,” the brunette Katie Lohres asked hopefully, “I mean, from what I heard from my Mom, it sounded like Mrs Daniels got run over by cats.”

“No, that was Grampa Sung who got buried by kitties when my Mommy sprayed them with the hose,” Bethany smiled happily, having witnessed that particular event as she mimed Benjamin Sung waving his arm as he was getting swarmed by cats, “It was really cool, you could only see his hand waving, there were so many kitties running everywhere.”

“Ohhhhh,” the wide eyed girls gushed.

“That’s too bad they’re all gone,” the redhead Gwendolyn Ivanovic said as she rolled up her hessian bag, having literally followed Amelie’s suggestion to grab the cloth bag which potatoes were usually kept in when she raided her mother’s kitchen for the cat hunting expedition, having temporarily dumped the dirty potatoes in her mother’s two wheel grocery trolley, which on hindsight mightn’t have been such a great idea, “I don’t suppose we can stay and play for a while?”

“What’s Sammy like? Is she our age?,” Monica Aoife O’Reilly asked with interest at Bethany whom was more of an acquaintance than a real friend from their brief meeting a few weeks ago, “How did you meet her and what kind of games do you play?”

“Sammy’s the same age as us, and we met yesterday,” Bethany glanced to see whether her departed mother, before gesturing the girls come closer, which they did as she whispered in a low voice, “This is a secret and you can’t tell anyone, promise...swear and hope to die if you tell.”

The girls leaning close paused, then nodded as they voiced their promise at what Bethany had to say.

“Sammy is training me how to be a witch,” Bethany stated, “I just got my new Familiar yesterday, and he’s the coolest ever.”

The girls straightened back up, looking momentarily uncertain at the proudly smiling green eyed blonde clutching the stuffed sock slug plushy, whom had let them in on her big secret.

“You got a new pet cat?,” Katie asked cynically, “Can we see it.”

“It’s not a cat,” Bethany shook her head, “Sammy has a cat called Fluffy, but Familiars don’t have to look like a cat because Sammy’s Familiar is a Wombat, while Fluffy’s Familiar is a Spider.”

“Didn’t you say Fluffy is a cat?,” Jacqueline jumped on the discrepancy, “What’s a cat doing with its own Familiar?”

“Fluffy’s a talking cat, he’s special, I guess,” Bethany explained, shaking her head, “It’s magic, I’m still learning about it but the stuff everyone thinks is true, is just wrong.”

“Ahh,” the girls nodded seriously at the explanation, as if it now made sense.

“So, what does your Familiar look like?,” Tanya asked curiously, deciding this was a new game and it beat going home empty handed.

“This is Groo the Slug,” Bethany said, holding the slug out to her friends, whom was still in ‘deflated’ sock slug mode, “I’m still figuring out what his special power is.”

There was a cryptic silence as the girls blinked at the unimpressive sock slug in Bethany’s hands, who was staring blankly at infinity with lifeless button eyes. The suspension of belief amongst the four year old girls collapsed in the light of reality, that they weren’t sure how to act.

“Oh. How nice,” Amelie broke the awkward silence and pasted a smile on her lips as she nodded to her friends to play along, “Sure, lets play witches and – uh, do witch stuff?”

It was obvious the blue eyed blonde ringleader was out of her depth, but her friends had taken their cue to buy into the proposed game.

“We need black hats,” Jacqueline injected thoughtfully at the new game, “Witches wear those funny cone shaped hats, like on Bewitched – you all seen that on TV, right?”

“Sure, my parent watch it all the time. It’ll be such fun,” Gwendolyn gushed with girlish enthusiasm with potatoes still lurking in the back of her mind, “We can make potato soup in a pot and stir it like witches.”

“And capes too, like Superman,” Monica added, musing as the potential of the new game grew on her after the initial let down, “We can go hunt a cat while we’ve got the equipment, and use it as a mascot.”

“We don’t have broomsticks,” Katie observed, pursing her lips at the typical witch’s flying implement before shrugging cutely, “I suppose we can just pretend and wing it, hmm?”

“What’s a group of witches called, anyway?,” Amelie asked suddenly as her friends warmed up to the new game.

“A coven,” Jacqueline replied, perking up with a sudden smile, “Hey, that sounds pretty cool, ‘The Coven’.”

“I like it!,” Gwendolyn gushed, hopping up and down on her toes at the prospect of cooking, “Lets make some yummy magic potions!”

Bethany blinked at the chorus of squeaky voice chiming their enthusiasm in learning how to be witches too, which was more enthusiasm than she expected.

The young blonde looked at the slug she was holding, and asked, “What do you think, Groo – can you teach us how to be a coven of witches?”

There was a pause, then two extra large tennis ball size cubes of sugar rattled onto the floorboards like tossed dice, where upon the circle of chirping little girls suddenly stopped chatting in their cute chirpy voices at each other, to find the unimpressive blue and yellow sock slug in Bethany’s hands had inflated itself to a more appropriate monstrous waste basket sized giant slug proportions.

The supernatural creature had sprouted eye stalks which were currently cross eyed atop a head listed to one side, and a parted mouth which had formerly just been a line of stitching that was drooling a puddle of large sparkly crystallised sugar on the floor as it twitched spastically like it was going into insulin shock.

“Um, too sweet, huh?,” Bethany said as she gingerly held the slug at arm’s length, whom spewed another burst of large sugar candy crystals on the floor as the surprised young girls stared at the transformed plush slug, “Are we no good?”

A Squishy is what it eats...and too much saccharine sweetness in one’s diet can have adverse effects.

“Bleurgh,” Groo the Slug vomited up more rainbow coloured sugary sweet crystals.

* * *


	18. Gold Bricking

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Covetous blue eyes stealthily watched the campsite from a distance.

It had seen the smoke of the campfire rising in the cool morning air, and had been making a bee line towards the source with a single minded purpose. Tourists and daytime fossickers were easy meat, who seldom bothered going into a town and looking up the sparse presence of the police in the countryside, to report small items they presumably ‘lost’ during their camping trip.

While landline phones had made the world smaller that such petty thefts could be reported to the authorities, it was actually fairly unlikely such minor ‘opportunistic’ losses would be mentioned by the time the people got back home to a phone...easy pickings, really.

The campsite looked to be deserted, the unattended old canvas tent beside the battered Landrover suggesting to experienced eyes whom had cased many such similar setups, that the owners fell into the casual ‘fossicker’ category whom had likely gone hunting for surface gold or panning for the metal at the creek which the area was famed for.

The lowlife moved in with a stealthy predatory gait, the campfire had been responsibly put out though the faint smell of bacon and eggs lingering on the frying pan and cooking implements reminded the opportunist that he hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, that he was looking forward to helping himself to some of the camper’s provisions.

Typical tourists, the thief thought as he ascertained that the campers weren’t in the immediate vicinity, before he began carefully rummaging through the belongings so as not to make it too obvious the campsite had been burgled – then smiled as he hit the jackpot...a peanut butter jar filled with gold metal.

“Oh my sweet precious,,” the thief said, laying trembling hands on the peanut butter jar containing several thousand dollars worth of gleaming gold metal, “Come to Poppa.”

Six pair of inhuman beady eyes whom had been left minding the camp, glared at the confirmed thief as he pounced with venomous fangs glistening.

“What the Fu – ?”

“SQUEEE!”

* * *

“AAAAAAAAAAGH!,” the manly scream of a low life Australian opportunist helping himself to a five fingered discount getting surprised by a pissed off pillow sized spider with huge fangs, cracked the peace of the Australian countryside as Grampa, Fluffy and I looked up from the spray of dirt methodically shooting out from the deepening wombat hole in pulses.

The three of us paused as Snarf the Wombat stopped digging to poke his head out of the hole he was digging down to where we’d detected some gold.

“Is Squee venomous?,” Grampa’s brow wrinkled with concern at the sudden thought at Fluffy and I.

“Hrrrm,” Fluffy replied thoughtfully with whiskers twitching in thought, waving his right paw uncertainly as he looked in the direction of our campsite where we’d left the pillow sized grey spider guarding our stuff, “Probably. He’s Australian, after all.”

“Should we go back and see who’s trying to steal our things?,” I asked Grampa with a displeased frown at the interruption of our gold hunting expedition, “The idiot got bit, right?”

“Yep, not fatal – just painful,” Fluffy’s eyes went distant a moment, then he nodded with smugly nonchalant satisfaction, “The little guy’s growing on me.”

“I suppose we should call it a day,” Grampa rubbed his chin as he looked at the second peanut butter jar we’d spent the morning filling up, the first peanut butter jar had been filled up yesterday noon after we’d set up camp, and had been left back at the campsite under Squee’s guard, “We’ve got more than enough metal for me to go to a refiner, to get it appraised.”

So far, we’d spent a productive morning collecting surface stuff I could dig up with my garden hand shovel I’d brought along. We’d left the cumbersome pick and shovel Grampa had brought back with the Landrover, when we all caught on that those claws on Snarf’s paws weren’t for decoration. The wombat shaped Earth Spirit was a walking mining rig whom could excavate faster and more efficiently than a bulldozer – stuff that would otherwise have been sweaty work to get to by pick and shovel, was made short work of under the wombat’s digging claws.

“Nya – let the paralysed scumbag reflect and sweat over his life choices,” interrupted Fluffy, his tufted ears twitched as he shook his head in a negative as the cat mentally questioned what his Squishy was up to, before breaking out in an unsympathetic fanged feline grin with his bushy tail wagging in amusement, “Squee’s dragging the burglar away from the campsite to sleep off the bite, heheheh.”

“Oh, never mind – as long as he didn’t kill anyone and we don’t have to deal with a body, I don’t need to know the details,” Grampa shrugged pragmatically, more annoyed that some cretin had attempted burglary while we were away from the campsite we’d set up last night, than feeling any great sense of humanitarian love for the opportunist’s welfare, “Spider bites in the bush happen...er, supernatural origins or not.”

Getting bit by a supernatural pillow sized spider was liable to become one of those unlikely tall tales which make it into Australian urban myths about the vicious wildlife. Yes, I could see that happening in some Australian pub. I can’t comment on how the normal variety of poisonous or predatory fauna is like myself, since Snarf and Squee seemed to have done a pretty good job scaring off anything dangerous in the vicinity since we’d set up camp yesterday afternoon.

The two supernatural entities just gave off that ‘I Am Hungry’ predatory vibe that comes out of their natural inclination to take bites out of anything as a way of demonstrating friendly Squishy intentions, which people and animals general interpret rather differently.

“Snarf?,” the dusty wombat with its head sticking out of the hole, looked at me with questioning cute beady eyes.

So far, I’d been enjoying the camping and fossicking trip, digging for gold was unconscionably fun.

“Keep digging,” I said to Snarf, pushing on his flat head back into the tunnel the wombat shaped entity was excavating in the side of the hill, “There’s a big lump of stuff down there.”

Detecting gold with supernatural Squishy enhanced ‘Witch’ senses felt a bit like seeing heat shimmers rising from the ground, which Fluffy suspected was some kind of metal detecting ability combined with an atomic mass spectrometer which filtered out all the non-gold metals. The bigger the heat shimmer, the larger the mass of gold – though the way the heat shimmered also indicated depth as well...it was kind of an ultimate cheat ability for gold fossicking, and I’d had fun figuring out what it could do yesterday afternoon, and practicing more this morning.

“Snarf,” the wombat said as he popped back underground, and the pulsing spray of dirt resumed shooting out of the hole which Grampa, Fluffy and I knew enough to not stand directly in front of when the wombat began digging.

Then the pulses of red dirt stopped, and Snarf poked his head out again, “Snarf.”

“Nothing?,” Grampa ventured as the empty pawed wombat waited for instructions.

I blinked a few times as I got an impression of a wombat…and a boulder the size of a dump truck which had blocked the wombat’s tunnelling, “There’s a big rock in Snarf’s way.”

“Can he eat through it?,” Grampa asked thoughtfully as he’d become aware that the mechanics of the wombat’s tunnel had more to do with ‘eating’ through earth than actually physically digging through it…well, I got the impression it was a lot more complicated involving wormholes to shorten distances – otherwise, the dirt being pushed out of the hole was more visual eye candy for our benefit than necessary. The wombat was too deep underground, for him to actually physically throw the dirt out of the tunnel using his paws.

Somehow, Snarf shortened the distance between where it was digging, and the mouth of the tunnel...maybe a point to point teleport of some kind? Who knows, Squishies don’t conform to human expectations of how we think the world is suppose to work, so what seems natural to a Squishy is pretty bizarre and mind breaking for us.

“Snarf,” the wombat nodded in reply, then ducked back into the tunnel.

There was silence, then a moment later the wombat reversed his rear end out the hole and the three of us found ourselves looking at a wombat’s butt hole as Snarf wiggled into a comfortable position…which strained, and with a nasty sounding squelch, began to extruded a…brick.

Funny thing about real wombats, which Fluffy and I had discovered yesterday during our exploration after setting up camp…wombats shit cubes. Seriously, we’d found a pile of mysterious square blocks which we’d brought to Grampa for identification, and Grampa had told us that it was wombat poop after which some hasty hand and paw washing ensued before we sat down to a dinner of bacon cooked over a campfire which we ate in between toasted buns.

Square shit kind of stayed in my mind, and I’d pretty odd dreams yesterday night about tiny machines mindlessly carting around square blocks of wombat poo building a pyramid, which was supposed to be some kind of energy generator of some kind...I’m not sure what my subconscious is trying to tell me, but dreams aren’t suppose to make a whole lot of sense in the first place.

The brick gleamed metallic gold, and as it left the wombat’s bum with inexorable slowness, the large metal brick dropped with a hefty solid thud of destiny upon hitting ground.

“Shit,” Grampa uttered, eyebrows rising as he realized what he was looking at.

But Snarf wasn’t finished.

Another gold brick began emerging from his rear end with the kind of strain you’d associated with a heavy load, accompanied by nasty sounding biological squelching noises of bowels being evacuated. I couldn’t begin to imagine any biological process where an animal ate dirt and shat out brick shaped ingots of gold...well, actually, I could sort of bend my mind to imagine a wombat doing it, which is probably where Snarf got the idea from since Squishies get their cues from the people they roost on.

Maybe unsuspectingly picking up wombat poo with my bare hands yesterday, had let behind some suppressed trauma?

And another metal brick oozed out and dropped, landing on the one already on the ground with a heavy fate defining metallic ‘clink’ that left an indentation on soft pure gold, as Grampa began to reach for the gold bars with trembling hands. It was quite visually obvious that those two bars alone, was more gold than we’d managed to collect so far in the two peanut butter jars during our random fossicking.

“Grampa, that’s wombat poop,” I warned distastefully as the wombat continued it scatological gold bricking activities.

Another brick dropped with a clink and a thud, and Grampa gasped on his knees with a feverish look as he cradled a heavy gold brick in his trembling hands, “We’re Rich – oh God, we’re Rich! Help me carry this back to the car!”

“I’m not touching no shit,” Fluffy cringed, and I shook my head at the disgusting prospect of voluntarily picking up wombat poo.

“Uh uh,,” I agreed with the cat, whom had back away – unsuspectingly picking up wombat cubes yesterday was still fresh on our minds, that laying hands on Snarf’s valuable metallic stool was just wrong on some undefinable level.

Another nasty squelch, clink and thud as another brick was deposited, and I suddenly understood that it hadn’t been just a boulder in Snarf’s way…it was a boulder, that had gold veins running through it which Snarf was now extracting and refining the metal as he ‘ate’ it.

“Oh – ohmygodohmygod,” Gramp gushed with a weird deranged ecstatic round eyed grin spreading on his face as he jumped up with gold brick in hand and hopped around in circles in a strange dance, his free hand on his head as if were about to blow off from internal pressure as another gold brick dropped and joined the growing pile, “Rich – Rich! Richrichrichrich! Mwahahaha!”

Fluffy and I exchanged half lidded looks at each other in mutual agreement as we watched Grampa have a laughing mental meltdown over wombat poop. It kind of reminded us both of Daffy Duck having a disgraceful episode of ‘Mine, All Mine’ avariciousness, which was very out of character for the Grampa we both knew.

Sure, Snarf was dumping out metal gold bricks which went Grampa didn’t have to worry about money for a while – but seriously, it was Wombat Poo.

Adults are weird.

“Um – Grampa, maybe you could just move the car here?,” I suggested as Grampa suddenly looked at me with the excited crazed look of a man who’s struck gold, “It’ll save us running back and forths from here and the campsite.”

“Sammy – you and Fluffy wait here and mind the gold, I’ll be right back with the Landrover,” Grampa directed, all businesslike all of a sudden, as he turned and ran off back to the car and break camp.

Fluffy sniffed suspiciously at the gold bricks piling up, and prudently retreated back to a safe distance as he shook his head, "If one of those bricks lands on you, you'd literally be killed by this shit."

"Yeah," I grimaced, following the cat's example and stepping back from the gleaming pile, "I can imagine there's some idiots out their who'd be standing under Snarf, trying to catch them as they came out."

Fluffy and I exchanged half lidded glances, then at Grampa's direction without saying a word...no, not a word.

And Snarf just wiggled his behind as he kept bricking...just how much gold was in that boulder?

For that matter, I judged with half lidded scepticism of humanity's pre-occupation with get rich quick schemes as I once again mentally reviewed the size of the dumpster sized boulder from the impression I’d gotten from Snarf, that even if it wasn’t solid with the stuff, the boulder contained a hefty amount of metal that could probably fill an oven, which was freaky heavy...could Grampa's Landrover even carry all that gold back to Sydney without breaking an axle?

* * *


	19. What do Bunyips have to do with Gold?

...Australia...Earth...1974...

The nanite colonies within the young Asian boy and Cat had been busily constructing more supplemental bioreactors once the initial reactor came online, because having more was never a bad thing to sustain the growing energy footprint of the colonies of higher level entities, whom had been attracted to the pair as an attractive roost.

Those curious demonic entities designated ‘Squishy’ were hardly new to the Alterans, whom had after all, bent their minds, souls and subsequent culture and civilisation towards emulating the seemingly immortal god-like non-corporeal beings comprised of a complex energy matrix during the struggles of their early pre-recorded histories, which resembled something out of the pages of a Michael Moorcock sword and sorcery fantasy.

Inviting demons – ahem, ‘Squishy’ colonies to roost was not in fact, a bad thing. Whatever existential threat that had destroyed Alteran civilisation was still out there, that gathering powerful allies from the various non-corporeal ascended planes with vested interests in keeping their new bipedal mobile homes from being molested, was only insurance as opposed to standing alone and isolated against the mysterious foe.

Besides which, the higher level entities feeding off the growing biological energy reserves of the unsuspecting young boy and cat not only served as helpful Minions doing the bidding of the newborn Altera, they were also supplementing the stealth field by masking the growing power of the pair whose emissions from their growing energy capacities would have eventually begun leaking out of the strained stealth countermeasures against detection.

So, as the nanites puttered around inside the boy and cat whom were travelling back to Sydney with their Grampa, there were quite a few more previously dormant Squishy colonies whom had latched onto their new abode for the trip ‘home’...

* * *

Squee the Spider dangled from the Landrover’s rear view mirror like a monstrous grey furred arachnid version of fluffy dice, its legs anchoring itself on the sparse Spartan interior of the vehicle as it pressed its smiling fanged mug against the windscreen watching the expressions on the drivers of the oncoming traffic whom caught a glimpse of the unusual ‘stuffed toy’ ornament adorning the boxy vehicle’s interior.

Benjamin Llewellyn Sung kept his eyes on the road and not on the giant spider riding shotgun on the windscreen. It was surprising how fast he’d gotten acclimated to the presence of the supernatural once his grandson had convince them to come out of the woodworks into the open, and he’d managed to make that mental leap of slotting the otherwise unseen world into his oriental outlook of ‘benign’ that the giant spider making hungry faces was hardly distracting his driving anymore, as it bounced with agitation at the Volkswagon Beetle overtake the Landrover and escape.

While the Series IIA Landrover was a sturdy vehicle which could go places other four wheel drives would gasp with horrified metallic grinding noises before leaving their undercarriages hanging behind on some outcropping, it wasn’t a terribly fast vehicle on the road as it had all the aerodynamics of a brick, with a petrol engine which could charitably be described as a little anaemic.

Doing a stately 80 km/h on the highway in a 100 km/h zone going mostly downhill to the coast towards Sydney whilst squeaking a creaking ominously with the British quality, was actually pretty good for the Series IIA. The Landrover was not a vehicle which shone on the highway, it’s attributes only became apparent once the bitumen gave out to unpaved dirt goat trails of the countryside where Benjamin had often ventured in better days gone past on fossicking trips, where he could escape the Evil Bag of a spouse at home and just pretend he hadn’t been emasculated by the depressing trauma of being fettered in unholy matrimony.

Quite a few cars had beeped Benjamin on the way up from Sydney, before overtaking him on the narrow highway once they realised the Landrover couldn’t physically go any faster than Benjamin was pushing it. The same was also true as Benjamin drove back down to the big smoke, though now he’d gotten acquainted with Snarf and Squee, the Wombat and Spider entities weren’t bothering to hide their presence like the initial trip when Benjamin was still trying to determine how he was feeling about the oddly shaped ‘nature’ spirits whom had possessed his grandson and pet cat.

Speaking of whom, the wombat shaped spirit in the back of the Landrover with his grandson and pet cat, had been rather quiet as opposed to the trip to the countryside where the boy had been excited at seeing a non-urban landscape for the first time. While the camping trip had been shorter than planned due to the mass of gold now stacked on the floor in the back of the Landrover, Benjamin had felt the need to hide the valuable metal from prying covetous eyes somewhere safer...the amount which had been dug up was actually quite troubling.

“Are you okay back there?,” Benjamin spoke up above the unsubtle rumble and rattle of the Landrover.

“We’re fine,” Sammy spoke up in his piping young voice, “Fluffy, Snarf and I were asking the bunyip who came with the gold why it’s in there.”

Benjamin blinked, then looked up at the rearview mirror the spider was hanging off, at his grandson, pet cat and wombat whom were sitting atop the metal gold bricks lining the floor of the rear. He didn’t see another entity in the back with the camping gear, which wasn’t saying very much since the supernatural world co-existed with people in the background without humanity having a clue there were hungrily drooling non-corporeal creatures hanging around the background, and feeding off their thoughts and beliefs.

“What bunyip?,” Benjamin enquired, as he redirected his eyes back to the road as the spider glared at oncoming traffic, “Did another – ah, Squishy follow us?”

“Sort of,” the boy replied without being particularly unperturbed at the supernatural entities whom he’d recently discovered, “It – er, actually, ‘They’ were sleeping in the gold Snarf dug up, and decided to come along and live with us in the house. It’s been sleeping in there for a long time when we dug it up and woke it, so I guess it’s fair since the bunyip’s giving us the gold in exchange for a new place to live.”

“Oh,” Benjamin said with a frown at the thought of something possessing his gold stash, which was now set on moving into the house with them, “I suppose that’s okay. What does the bunyip look like?”

“Um...what do you guys look like?,” Fluffy piped up curiously in a high pitched catlike voice, “You never mentioned.”

There was a moment of silence when the hairs of Benjamin Sung’s balding head attempted to standing on end as some of the gold bricks spontaneously melted and flowed like liquid mercury, when the camping gear and folded tent in the rear of vehicle stirred...the golden scaled snout of a monstrous giant lizard the size of a respectable crocodile nosed, emerged out of the pile of camping equipment accompanied by the wail of a horrified cat and startled scream of a young boy whom scrambled back from the intrusion into the physical world.

A long forked serpentine tongue flickered out from within a maw of scythed backward curving carnivorous teeth designed to hold prey, which looked like it could do some serious damage to a person...who knows, the ancient Aborigines of Australia probably had, and had fallen snack to such predators before they’d resorted to burning down the landscape in self defence against such man eaters.

“Ah – the Bunyip,” Fluffy squeaked sagely after sucking in a deep calming breath, “What is it with Australia, that this country has so many giant fucked up things?”

Benjamin stared mesmerised at the rear view mirror at the ominously rumbling golden scaled monster from Australian myth...he’d never heard of a Megalania, but he’d seen pictures monitor lizards like the Komodo dragon whom were already quite menacing.

This particular golden scaled lizard’s head which looked to be a good meter across and filled the back of the Landrover, blinked malevolent predatory eyes which metaphorically bored into the back of Benjamin’s exposed skull implied that the bulk of a much more massive creature was ‘hiding’ under the pile of camping gear it had poked out of...okay, that was physically impossible since there was nothing under the camping gear but a thin layer of car and the bitumen of Australian road, but...Benjamin rationalised that he was dealing with the Supernatural, so things like commonsense weren’t really applicable.

“Squee,” the spider on the windscreen interrupted Benjamin’s primeval horror, at being in an enclosed space with nowhere to run. After a long moment of staring into the back mirror at the rather horrifying meat rending teeth in a mouth that was drooling saliva ominously, Benjamin’s eyes snapped back to the road in front of him least he drive off it...the alien rumble of the reject from the Pleistocene filled the cabin of the Landrover.

“...,”a deep shuddering he’d been holding later, Benjamin forced himself adapted to a thoroughly violated world view which he’d subconsciously been coasting along in shock since discovering the supernatural was real and a lot more tangible than the cross waving lunatics out their denying reality and probably pissing off the unseen locals comprehended, gasped out an expletive in a distant strangled squeaky voice in the presence of a dangerous meat eating predator whose skull could swallow him whole without even having to bite, ”Fuck. Me.”

The bunyip snorted disdainfully at the proposal, blinked with serpentine malevolence, then the giant golden scaled head of the monstrous monitor lizard oozed back under the pile of camping equipment which appeared ominously undisturbed and presumably, the gold bricks lining the bottom of the Landrover’s rear, which now seemed unnaturally empty in the absence of the giant lizard’s head which had molested reality.

“Okay,” Sammy licked dry lips as he patted the gold bricks he was sitting atop of with Fluffy and Snarf with a great deal more respect, “Of course bunyip would be a dragon...it’s guarding a gold treasure.”

“I think my furry nuts just crawled into my body cavity in terror, considering we’re literally sitting on its back,” Fluffy said as he gingerly stood on his toes on the gold bricks stacked on the floor, and sniffed at the metal he was standing on, “Australian type dragons are so...so..brutish.”

“Personally, I’d prefer something a little more cultured and oriental,” Benjamin agreed absently, keeping his eyes on the road and trying not to think too hard, “Also smaller.”

“Yeah,” Sammy agreed, nodding in agreement at the latest Squishy addition to the household.

The Bunyip took note of the preferences of its new hosts and housemates as the Landrover drove back to Sydney with speed maniacs beeping and overtaking the anaemic British four wheel drive all the way.

* * *


	20. Some days, a fortune just up and walks off

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Benjamin Llewellyn Sung had a problem.

He hadn’t known it was a problem, until he got home and parked the Landrover in front of the driveway gates, and attempted to get out of the car to open the gates so he could proceed down the driveway down to the garage...where upon he belatedly discovered that he couldn’t.

Benjamin discovered that the aching muscles in his body he’d been ignoring while driving, had frozen him into a sitting position on the trip back to Sydney. Now that the gold fever induced adrenaline rush had worn off, trying to shift out of a sitting position after a couple of hours ignoring the signs, really, really hurt.

“Oh, give me a bloody break,” a grimacing Benjamin gingerly hung his head after trying to budge from the driver’s seat without the shooting pain from the muscle cramps stopping him dead, and swore softly under his breath as he gripped the steering wheel at the ludicrous predicament.

The elderly Asian looked up at the closed waist height steel gates down the driveway to the heavy green wooden barn doors of the garage that was illuminated in front of the headlights, then his brow furrowed with the perplexed sensation that some Random Omniscient Being was jerking him off.

“Do you want me to open the gate, Grampa?,” a curious Sammy piped up with the offer from the back of the Landrover, where he was sitting with the camping gear and gold bricks, Fluffy and the beady eyed monsters whom were observing the situation – wearing seat belts had been compulsory by legislation in Australia since 1971, but that didn’t stop people from driving around with the unsecured kids haphazardly thrown in the back of a station wagon or such.

“Yes please – wait, can you also open the garage doors too?,” Benjamin smiled in relief as the seemingly insurmountable obstacle to his frail geriatric sedentary physique, suddenly resolved itself in a relatively painless solution in the form of his bright eager eyed grandson. Benjamin took the keys out of the ignition, and unhooked the key to the garage as he took it for granted his helpful grandson would volunteer to trot down and open up the garage too, “I’m feeling a little tired after the drive home.”

“Sure, Grampa,” Sammy said as he took the garage key, and scampered out the back of the Landrover and around the aluminium bodied car, to swing the gates open with Fluffy following him in the dark. The both of them then trotted down the driveway by the light of the headlights, to open up the garage barn doors as Benjamin started the car again after gingerly stretching his stiffened arms.

A palpable sense of relief swept over Benjamin as he parked the Landrover inside the garage.

He was back home, and the treasure of gold bars only thinly veiled from discovery in the back of the car under the camping gear, was now safe from potential prying eyes. Benjamin sat in the Landrover and watched his grandson in the rear view mirror pull the heavy garage doors shut behind, listening to the metallic pings of cooling metal a moment as he steeled himself for the next ordeal.

“Okay, come on Ben – it’s not that bad,” Benjamin psyched himself up as he began huffing in rapid breaths with the expectation of further impending trauma, “No pain, no gain.”

Popping over the driver’s side door, Benjamin abruptly swung his stiffened legs outside onto the concrete floor. There was a moment of heart stopping clarity where Benjamin became cognisant that he’d really let himself go since his divorce, as abused muscles made a disturbing crunching popping noise.  
Then the sharp dizzying nauseous pains shot up and down his body which brought tears to Benjamin’s eyes as his trembling limbs spasmed accompanied by a strangled hysterical a whimper that was incongruously cross between a hiccup of a giggle and suppressed weeping, “Ehheh!”

Being out of shape had suddenly become a crippling painful reality, that Benjamin was filled with instant remorse and regret those of having discontinued those long soul searching ‘Meaning of Life’ walks around the neighbourhood, once the divorced incentive had departed the house with her bastard spawn.

“Oh Gawd,” coughed a sob between clenched teeth with his head bowed, there was a long moment as the stars faded from Benjamin’s whited out teary vision, and the pain ebbed to something that was less than the sensation of molten metal burning his veins, nerve endings, to something which just felt like slowly diluting acid destroying his sanity as someone distantly sobbed in the background, before Benjamin realised it was him, “Oohhohohoh, fucking damn, I'm dying.”

The thing about growing old which nobody ever mentions or acknowledges when younger and healthy, is that it really, horribly, unrepentantly sucks as your body starts breaking down. Your once fit and healthy body that was bursting with vitality, is no longer as resilient as it use to be as things run down.

Muscle degenerates and turns to fat, and the simple things you use to do all the time are no longer a quick convenient energetic sprint, but a carefully planned marathon of effort where everything seems to be a hurdle where the body just seems to hit a wall and quit way below estimations, without anything left in the tank to go further.

“Are you okay, Gramps?,” Fluffy the Cat looked up at Benjamin with wide sympathetic feline eyes as he sat down in front of the elderly Asian whom was suddenly drenched in sweat, his bushy orange tail swishing with curious interest, “You look like some old codger stuck on the can who’s discovered constipation.”

“Eheheheheh,” Benjamin responded in a decidedly restrained low toned evil laugh while doubled over stiffly, and slowly looked up so as not to aggravate his aches between clenched teeth at the orange furball’s casual insult of his infirmity, the unvoiced fantasy of taking an unconscious fluffy orange cat to the vet to ‘fix’ the attitude briefly flittered through his mind, “Just keep sitting there, cat, the old codger can use something soft and fluffy to land on when he passes out.”

Fluffy glanced to either side, estimating the line of Benjamin’s liable collapse, and prudently relocated his furry ass behind the shield of the Landrover’s driver side door which he peered around, in the event Benjamin did try to take him out using him as a landing pad.

“Grampa, I locked up the garage door,” Sammy came back with the key and paused, as he observed a heavily sweating Benjamin just sitting in the driver’s seat with his legs hanging limply out the side of the car, “Are you feeling sick?”

“Oww – owwww,” Benjamin groaned softly at protesting aggravated inflamed muscles as he slowly sat up, the effort having made him break out in a drenching sweat. The elderly Asian slowly blew his breath out, as the aches slowly ebbed to something that just felt like cruel and unusual torture, “Never, ever, become old Sammy. Never let yourself grow old alone.”

“Um – okay,” Sammy nodded at the odd sage advice from his grandfather, “Do you need me to bring some Aspirin or, um, call an ambulance?”

“Nyahahaha,” Fluffy laughed behind the cover of the Landrover door, which Benjamin made the effort to bang his fist against despite the shooting pain in his shoulder when he did so.

“No, I’m fine,” Benjamin took a deep calming breath, and sighed wistfully at the confused looking ignorance of youth, “It’s just a natural part of growing old, Sammy…if you find a good woman, then that day will never come. But a bad woman will age you beyond your years and leave only an empty shell behind, after sucking the life out of your best days.”

Sammy paused, then nodded with sudden comprehension, “Evil Grandmother.”

“Good boy – now, I’m really not hurting as much as I’m going to pretend to be in a few moments,” Benjamin said with a fond smile, then blew his breath out, then manfully hauled himself to his feet and wept as he clutched the car door for support with teeth clenched and head bowed, as horrible pains burned up and down his unsteady trembling legs which felt like wet noodles.

Sammy and Fluffy looked patently unconvinced as they rushed to support Benjamin or offer some furred psychological support. The wombat and spider peered out of the Landrover, and raised stubby forepaws and legs at Benjamin as if warming themselves at a fireplace – their grasp on the concept of ‘pain’ and the associated emotions it evoked was very much unrefined to cartoonish caricatures, but the Squishy did appreciate Benjamin’s pain and suppressed anguish at his frailty as a source of sustenance.

So did the hitch hiker in the back of the car, whom roused and pushed aside the camping gear it had been temporarily nesting under before poking its armoured golden snout out the back of the Landrover, which shook as it lumbered out and filled the space in the garage with an ominous reptilian rumble.

Benjamin looked at the giant golden lizard whom yawned with a mouth of huge serrated scimitar teeth blankly, then at the missing gold bars he’d laboriously stacked up in the back of the vehicle just a few hours ago, then back at the giant lizard whose forked tongue sinuously flickered out to ‘taste’ his confused emotional state...no, actually, Benjamin thought to himself through numbed realisation, it wasn’t confused...it was the kind of gut ripping sensation a man on his last legs gets, when a fortune within reach suddenly ups and walks off under a new owner.

A psychologically damaged Benjamin slowly began to laugh and wept as he used the Landrover’s door to prop himself up, quite hysterically at the ludicrous pain and suffering he was going through, which was all for nothing – no way was he that far gone, to try prying gold out of a literal fucking dragon’s hide.

* * *

The trip back up to the house with his grandson supporting him followed by a spider bearing an Esky of food leftover from the curtailed camping trip on its back, and wombat sitting on the carnivorous skull of an extinct variety of giant Australian lizard once known as Megalania, and followed up by Fluffy the Cat whom inspected the urban cryptid tracks left behind by the precession through the backyard, was a bit of a delirious haze for Benjamin.

A hot soak in the bath certain helped the aches of the body, but the pains of the soul were quite another matter.

The Megalania whom some also called a Bunyp, sensed Benjamin’s attachment with the substance from which had formed itself, and though Benjamin’s soul was weak and dim compared to bonfires of Fluffy and Sammy sources…there was more than enough energetic bleed through from the boy and cat for the big lizard to sustain itself inside the house.

The giant lizard followed Benjamin to his bedroom, and decided it would do as a lair as the worn out and mentally subverted elderly Asian fell into bed and passed out.

The giant lizard scrutinised the oblivious sleeping Benjamin with unnatural reptilian Squishy eyes, then lay down at the foot of the bed as it began to feed and the long term project of ‘fixing’ the feeble flickering soul it had developed an interest in as a side snack to the rather more nourishing output of the boy and cat.

As the dragon settled in its new Lair and contemplated on an age long past into myth and legend of the aboriginal Dreamtime, tiny slivers of golden wyrms and newts began disseminate from its scales and spread, burrowing into the floors, walls and ceilings to Possess the house to extend the reach of the main colony, serving as ‘aerials’ to capture the output of sustenance from its unsuspecting human and cat residents to feed upon, even as its mass and bulk slimmed down to something more manageable.

Meanwhile, Benjamin dreamed of gold, giant lizards and dragons, which subconsciously gave the Megalania cues as to what a Chinese style dragon should look like, which was corroborated by Fluffy and Sammy whom had turned in for the night and were sharing their own dreams.

Well, new place, new food...and the new resident of the Sung Household was developing a taste for Chinese...the Megalania began to adapt and evolve to the new environment of its Lair, with some unsubtle physical changes to its exterior...

* * *


	21. To Mod or not to Mod...

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Groo the Slug gently pried itself from the grip of the sleeping fair haired child, substituting a convenient spare pillow which the stirring four year old little girl’s questing hands latched onto as she stilled, and fell back into a deeper sleep at the comforting bulk in the dark. The blue and yellow furry slug observed the sleeping child for a moment, so innocent and vulnerable as she hugged the pillow with her adorable cherubic lips parted slightly with a slight trickle of saliva poised to drip out onto the fabric – there was, Groo considered as it fed on the young girl’s sleeping thoughts, something missing.

After a moment scrutinising the innocent scene of domesticated childhood with puzzled eyestalks, Groo the Slug managed to grasped the little girl’s subconscious need which leaked across the species thought barrier it had established with her, and helpfully utilised a lithe and gentle touch of its pseudopods to move the child’s hand to her parted lips, and plug the potential leak with her thumb which the relaxed sleeping girl instinctively began sucking on...a waking Bethany would be chagrined to discover in the morning, the habit which she’d spent a great deal of effort kicking because she was a ‘big girl’, had mysteriously resumed.

The slug moved off the bed and slithered horizontally over the side without issue where upon reaching the floor, the slug’s eye stalks scrutinised the little pink bunny slippers it found staring at it with glassy eyes, before deciding it wasn’t on the approved edibles list and moved across the parquetry floor to the bedroom door.

After a moment looking up at the doorknob on the obstacle in its path, the furred slug chose instead to flatten itself in a boneless fashion which would probably have evoked a great deal of horror and disgust in vertebrates whose skeleton precluded such radical changes in form, and squeezed itself under the door jamb to emerge out the other side where it reinflated, to resume its pudgy furred sluglike shape as it continued its silent slithery journey to the kitchen.

Groo the Slug was feeling hungry, from the mass conversion of producing glucose and saccharine sugars in which it had ‘fed’ the group of unsuspecting little girls a portion of itself in the form of ‘Slug Sherbet’. The alien colonial organism which resembled a friendly furred slug had expended a small but significant portion of its colonial resources and mass to impart seed colonies to the excited little girls in the Squish act of equivalent exchange, whom had declared the formation of their Witch’s Coven over tea and biscuits.

Even after the parting, those seed colonies now roosting on the sleeping little girls were developing the possession of new territories and resources, but that still left the parent Groo a little light on mass despite the nourishing empathic thoughts from the new food sources...an unnatural big smile spread upon the blue and yellow striped slug’s maw as a victim scuttle across its path, which was quite unfortunately on the approved ‘edibles’ list.

A pseodopod lashed out and an unsuspecting bug gave up its life force, disintegrating in a puff of dispersing component elements which Groo proceeded to inhale into itself, adding a tiny amount of physical mass to itself.

“Burp.”

Groo the Slug’s eye stalks surveyed the darkness of the kitchen, which to human eyes looked clean, pristine and devoid of life as any fastidious full time wife and mother could make it...but to a Squishy, was teaming with vermin ranging from rodents and bugs lurking in the corners and cupboards, to less visible pests like various strains of bacteria.

All of which was on the approved edibles list...and that was before raiding the fridge.

Groo the Slug a snakelike tongue slithered out of its maw and the furred slug smacked its mouth, the rules passed down from its parent colonies comprised of Snarf the Wombat and Squee the Spider, had been quite comprehensive on the appropriate dining etiquette as the eldritch horror began slithering into the unvisited corners to suck out the life forces from the Stewart household’s vermin...

By the time Groo finished rooting out the last of the bug and rodent population, it had quite recovered the expenditure of mass and energy, and then some from harvesting the now very sterile household’s vermin.

The furred slug slithered back up and onto the little girl’s bed, to gently pry the pillow she was snuggled against in the knowledge her old cock slug friend whom guarded her sleep against the unseen monsters in the dark, was protecting her with renewed awareness and vigilance. Groo deftly substituted itself for the pillow and inserted itself back into the sleeping little girl’s embrace and slithered it’s pseudopods around the girl’s neck, Bethany was oblivious to what had occurred as she continued to suck on her thumb.

Quite replenished from its late night snack, Groo the Slug pressed itself against the warmth of the young girl as it focused upon the task of ‘cultivating’ the sleeping mind in the manner of a horticulturalist hobbyist tending to the weeding and water of the backyard vegetable garden that would provide a bounty of delicious vegetarian sustenance...there were quite a few basic housekeeping improvements which could be made to ‘stock’ human physiology, that Groo absently began tinkering with the sleeping girl to improve the return on harvest.

* * *

Jacqueline Holmes woke up from an odd dream in which she was digging furrows in the earth to plant a garden. In one of those odd dreamy time lapse sequences, the little brown haired girl had planted seeds which had sprouted all kind of vegetables in the furrows she’d dug, when she’d heard a chomping noise to find a miniature Groo munching on the veggies.

There’d been a moment where the brown haired girl had been confronted with whether or not to feel annoyed at her hard labour been eaten by the miniature blue furred slug with yellow banding, but seeing as she’d wanted a friendly plush slug shaped friend of her own to make her personal Familiar after meeting Bethany’s much larger Groo, Jacqueline decided to feed the slug a carrot and make friends with the creature instead as she coaxed it onto her arm.

The bond between Witch and Familiar, was made in that moment as mini-Groo happily munched on the offered carrot stick whilst sitting on the shoulder of its new Host.

An odd thought occurred to Jacqueline as she observed the field of lush fruit and vegetables, just before she woke up to find an egg sized blue and yellow furred mini-Groo eyeing her with its eye stalks on her pillow...the furrows of the vegetable garden looked a little like the crevices of a brain she’d seen in a book once.

“Groo,” the mouse sized eldritch creature on her pillow greeted as it sprouted pseudopods from its side and embraced Jacqueline’s skin, rubbing its plush silky fur against Jacqueline’s cheek in what might be erroneously construed as affection.

Jacqueline blinked at the small defenceless creature which had seemingly sprang forth from her now fleeting dreams, then she smiled in the knowledge this was her cute little Familiar, as she reached up and petted it between the eyes with her index finger somehow knowing she wasn’t in danger, “Hi – I’m Jacqueline.”

“Groo,” the eldritch abomination said as it wrapped its tiny pseudopods around Jacqueline’s finger, and slithered aboard the little girl’s hand as it proceeded to make its way up her arm to her shoulder as a fascinated Jacqueline sat up to watch the furry little slug’s passage.

But the small creature didn’t stop at her shoulder like in her dreams.

The mini-Groo proceeded to move from her shoulder onto the back of Jacqueline’s neck, and then climbed up the back of her head where the four year old child giggled at the strange tickling sensation that was somewhat deeper than just her hair being touched and arranged.

Mini-Groo began symbiotically cultivating the Soul of its Host as Jacqueline jumped out of bed, and rushed over to the mirror to admire her new blue and yellow themed furry scrunchy with a pair of eyestalks poking up, that had helpfully gathered her hair back into the usual ponytail she wore it in.

“This is so cool!,” the innocent little girl gushed, admiring her new friend and familiar in the mirror hide in plain sight as a hair accessory while it subtly sucked on her on scalp, making minor incremental changes deep under the skin as it watched with eye stalks behind her head.

* * *

The group of little young witches gathered at their meeting spot, chattering with squeaky excitement as they showed off their new blue and yellow furred eldritch hair accessories. If it appeared the group of children were somehow closer to each other than they had been the day previous, then it might have been due them now being part of the their newly declared Coven.

Or it could be the fact the min-Groo slugs whom were masquerading as hair ornaments, were just part of a singular hive mind whom were tapped into the budding young Souls and feeding off the thoughts of their hosts, an exchange which went both way in what might have interpreted as a religious experience by an adult had they experienced such.

In human myth and legends across the world, there are allusions in fairy tales that inanimate objects can be imbued with, or attain, a kind of sentience which allows them an ability to communicate with their owners. The phenomena was apparently so prevalent in Japan, the locals even had a word for it, ‘Tsukumogami’, literally tools which have acquired a spirit...one does wonder how many such tales have a Squishy at its origin.

Considering that Groo the Slug was just such an entity whom had possessed a former Parramatta Eels football sock which had been made into a plushy sock slug, there’s probably a lot more truth in those obsolete superstitions than people who live in the modern world give credit for.

The Coven of quite pleased little witches moved off to meet at Bethany Stewart’s place whom had introduced them to the whole witching game, whom they’d made plans the previous day to play with to train in the art of witchery which was now very real to them – and resume exploring the fun strange world of the supernatural that had intruded into their mundane world, which modern humanity had largely shunned and denied out of the mainstream awareness.

* * *

Bethany had woken up with her thumb plugged in her mouth.

It had taken her a few moments to realise that comfortable nostalgic sensation of regressing back into a bad habit was wrong, though she gave her thumb a few more sucks seeing it was already there, before pulling it out and wiping the appendage on the pillow as the plushy sock slug looked down on her from atop its eye stalks.

For a brief fleeting moment, Bethany felt unnerved as her bad habit was exposed, before the young blonde giggled and hugged the possessed unassuming sock slug whom had been next to her all night, and protectively watching over her.

“Groo,” the slug said as it returned Bethany’s affection.

There was no reason to feel embarrassed in front of the sock slug, Bethany thought as the slug hugged her back with its tentacles, Groo was her very own Familiar.

“What have you been doing all night, Groo?,” Bethany enquired in a friendly chirpy voice, “Are you hungry for breakfast?”

“Burp,” the slug replied, eye stalks blinking at the gastric emission as it proceeded to gum on Bethany’s scalp with harmless toothlessness.

“Oh, I’m hungry – maybe Sammy’s come back today, and we can have yum cha at tea and play with everyone after breakfast, huh?,” Bethany said as she pulled the slug slobbering on her head off, excited at the prospect that her friends were coming over to play, “Everyone loved the yummy magic slug sherbet you made yesterday, but we really should start learning how to be proper witches.”

Little girls are chatty and Bethany was no exception as she happily explained what was planned for the day what taking care of her morning chores, a great deal which went over Groo’s eye stalks as far as comprehension was concerned – but the database of little girls heading towards the Stewart house whose empathic emotions it’s proxies were feeding off of was providing a better glimmering of understanding of the role it was being asked to play.

These girls Really WANTED to be witches, so they could play with magic.

A perplexed Groo the Slug scratched behind its right eye stalk with a pseudopod, the thought of the mob of squeaky little girls clamouring to learn how to become witches, evoked an odd image of a swarm of little fairies fighting over a tasty looking flower for some odd reason, that Groo the Slug blew out a sigh of twinkly transient sparkles out its mouth which a fascinated Bethany laughed and clapped her hands at.

The problem was, Groo had no idea what ‘magic’ was...no, really, what was magic?

Bethany’s grasp of the concept seemed to be that magic was everything that fell outside of her ‘normal’ experiences, which conflicted from the information Groo was receiving from the other girls through its proxies. That didn’t help much at all, since Groo didn’t have a good grasp on what humans thought of as ‘normal’ either.

The information Groo had gleaned from its parent hive entities known as Snarf and Squee, whom were roosting on Sammy and Fluffy, currently constituted an ‘edibles’ list of things a Squishy could eat without asking for permission first, and a abbreviated list of what wasn’t allowed around humans...which begged the question, was a ‘Witch’ even classified as Human anymore?

Groo pondered the existential question which might have been obvious to a person, but was a very puzzling concept to a Squishy whom saw things from the point of view of energy states. From a perspective of a Squishy looking for a prospective food source, a young child had much Much more energy potential than an adult whose Soul was ossified into a certain pattern – it was a very rare adult human whom could overcome that kind of habitual indoctrination which had become reflexive instinct.

While it wasn’t impossible for a couch potato to overcome the sedentary lifestyle and exercise to the point of developing a buff six pack, it was much easier for a child to kick the thumb sucking habit than someone parked in front of a boob tube 24/7 to summon the will to indulge in healthier habits counter to their existential reality.

A cheerful chatty Bethany carried off her compliant sock slug shaped friend down to breakfast as Groo pondered that question which has plagued every hardcore hobbyist attempting to squeeze that little bit more bang per buck performance out of the hardware...to Mod or not to Mod, or just leave things stock and hope everything works out without potential burning smells?

* * *


	22. A Dragon called Moire

...Australia...Earth...1974...

“This...is Moire,” Grampa self consciously put his hand on the ‘shoulder’ of the largish serpentine golden scaled Chinese style dragon seated in his place at the kitchen table, its short stubby forepaws on the rim of the table as it flicked its forked snakelike tongue at Fluffy and I in way of greeting, “She’ll be staying with me – us, from now on.”

It was difficult to rationalise this was the same Squishy as the Bunyip whom had crawled out the back of Grampa’s Landrover yesterday night, as she was just a fraction of the bulk of the lumbering Megalania lizard.

“Hsssss...,” the forked tongue made a distinctive soft hissing sound as it flickered in and out.

Fluffy and I looked at the golden dragon which Grampa had assigned a name and a gender, which is odd because a Squishy doesn’t actually have a gender.

The big fluffy orange orange cat beside me squinted as he sniffed curiously at the Moire, when his whiskers stiffened and ears pricked up on alert at Grampa with a knowing fanged catty grin, “You sick deviant person – I can smell you all over it.”

Grampa looked embarrassed as he cleared his throat, “She’s a shape changer.”

“Still fucking gold,” the cat replied with a catty grin and bushy tail crooked in that question mark way a cat does when it finds a new interesting toy, shaking his head unrepentantly at Grampa’s discomfort, “Why Moire?”

“Um, shouldn’t the naming convention be – er, Hiss?,” I had the feeling that something was being said beyond what I was hearing in the spoken words, but Fluffy’s comment on Moire’s name distracted me from dwelling on what wasn’t being said because of the four year old child at the table, “I mean, we call Snarf a Snarf because it snarfs, and Squee is Squee because it squees – shouldn’t Moire be, er, Hiss? Or maybe something like MissyMissHissy sounds nice?”

“Hsssss...,” Moire gave me a disapproving draconic hiss as her neck frill which had remained folded up until now, flared in warning, her mouth filled with tiny backwards curved scimitar teeth like the giant lizard she’d devolved from, suggesting a very vicious bite were she inclined to be hostile.

“Uh – Moire sounds good,” I retracted hastily as I was visually pinned by Moire’s threatening serpentine glare.

“There, there,” Grampa affectionately patted Moire’s scaled back and the golden dragon sinuously relaxed at his touch, her neck frill went down and mouth closed as she turned her head to Grampa who began scratching her under the chin, “Moire is...a person I’ve always dreamed about, a friend who is always there for me when I need her, who has my back when all the world is against me. She is my ideal.”

Moire purred as her large serpentine eyes narrowed to slits under the praise and attention.

Well, I suppose if Grampa is happy with having a personal Squishy friend hanging around him like Squee and Snarf does around Fluffy and I. Speaking of whom, the two of them had continued staring at us over the rim of the bed yesterday after we got back, and while Fluffy and I had accepted them watching over us when we were camping, it was a different matter now we were back home – so I sent Snarf off to dig a bunker under the house or something since the wombat seemed to have a talent for excavating holes, and Fluffy had dispatched the spider to keep a watch on the wombat so we could both get some sleep in privacy.

“I’m more of a cat person myself, and probably a little biased towards fur,” Fluffy injected with a cynical sleek catty smirk as his tail swished like he was about to pounce on something, “But my peanut sized mind kind of fries and goes ‘NopeNopeNope’ at you and Moire getting squicky as she is. I'm pretty familiar with your tastes since we hang out and browse the same magazine, so what does the girl friend look like when she’s trying to swallow the salami?”

There are times I swear Fluffy’s speaking an alien language, maybe it’s a cat thing to be annoyingly cryptic?

I mean, Grampa never buys salami – it’s too expensive for what you get. I know, because Grampa lets me help with the house budget, which is why Fluffy has to make do with dry kitty kibble rather than the gourmet cat stuff...speaking of which, Fluffy hasn’t been eating kitty kibble since we both became aware of the world around us a few days ago, so I’m going to have to figure what else can be cut from the budget as the cat was no longer willing to put up with scrimping.

However, before I could ask Grampa where he was hiding the salami he was feeding Moire and what did she really look like, the dragon...changed.

One moment Grampa was fondly scratching a preening golden Chinese dragon under its scaly jaw, and the next moment he was ticking a pretty smoking hot – yes, I’m four years old, but I’m not totally ignorant of female aesthetics when I see it – golden tanned busty D-cup teen queen with a blonde mane of hair under the chin.

“Hsssss...”

Fluffy and I stared fish eyed as Grampa continued scratching the preening nude schoolgirl pinup under the chin, in shock at the spontaneous change as a rather incongruous forked tongue flickered from Moire’s lips, and we noted her eyes were still disconcertingly reptilian.

“Rowr,” Fluffy said appreciatively, licking his muzzle, “Nice fur.”

“Hmmm,” I hummed thoughtfully as I looked Moire’s pristine statuesque physique up and down while kicking my feet under the chair – Grampa’s fertile adult imagination probably had a similar effect on Moire’s ‘human’ appearance as mine had on Snarf’s wombat shape.

“Ah!,” exclaimed Grampa as he realised what he was doing, and snatched his hand away and hopped with indecision as he dithered on how to cover up his Squishy...well, girlfriend’s healthy pneumatic nudity, without laying hands on her outstanding assets in front of Fluffy and I at the kitchen table, “Moire!”

“Hsssss?...”

And suddenly, Moire caught up with Grampa’s alarm and was back to being a dragon again...however, what’s been seen, cannot be unseen. I don’t know about Fluffy, but my mental image of Moire was irrevocably altered into a definitive ‘person’ rather than just a generic dragon shaped Squishy entity.

“I like Moire, Grampa,” I smiled cheerfully and leaned back a little, nodding at the confused dragon whom sinuously wove back and forth looking for the threat it felt from Grampa’s sudden spike of emotive alarm, and hissing cobra-like fashion with neck frill splayed where she proceeded to leap onto Grampa and coil around him in a defensive band of metallic golden serpent, “She likes you a lot too.”

“Not like we can do anything about it,” Fluffy remarked in a fluffed smug feline smirk as Grampa staggered under Moire before the Squishy inexplicably ‘pushed’ that mass and weight elsewhere to lighten Grampa’s load, “Possession is nine tenths of the law, you know.”

Before Grampa could say anything, we heard the side gate open and someone come down the side passage of the house to the kitchen door and knock insistently, before a familiar blonde head poked through the cat door which hadn’t been locked down.

“Hsssss!,” Moire bared a mouth of serrated teeth at the intrusion which had given Grampa another spike of alarm as she protectively wrapped around his head – that being the most important part of her ‘food source’ whom was putting out some interesting empathic thoughts.

“Sammy?,” Bethany smile winningly as she peeked at us with bright green eyes from the cat door, taking a moment to observe Grampa wrestling with his pet demon before simply accepting it as a new norm from her chld’s perspective where everything was potentially new and exciting, “I brought Groo and some new friends to play!”

“Who’s Groo?,” Fluffy asked as he hopped off his chair to see what was going on.

Bethany backed out then eagerly shoved a blue furred sluglike Squishy with yellow bands through the cat door, whom observed us gravely with eye stalks, before spontaneously barfing up a twinkly sparkly puddle of fine powder to the cries of what sounded like a group of little girls outside over something called ‘Slug Sherbet’ which they were collecting in a container.

The furred slug drooling puddles of the strange powdery stuff from its mouth, was hastily pulled back out the cat door by the little girls outside.

Fluffy poked his head out the cat door, where I heard more gratuitous cries of little girls...the cat’s furry tail and hindquarters went stiff, then my struggling furry orange friend was dragged outside despite the attempts of his hind paws kicking and big flailing fluffy tail scrabbling toprevent himself being dragged out the cat door by the squealing excited little girls outside...and then, Fluffy was gone and the cat door flap swung ominously.

It was such a dreadful cliché horror movie trope, that a moment of irrational fear struck me that what sounded like a group of excited chatty little girls on the other side of the door, suddenly came across more like a mob of vicious grabby chirpy monsters ruthlessly clamouring to claim their piece of pussy from Fluffy’s orange furred hide to the verbal protests of the cat outside, which just encouraged more interest in molesting the 'Talking Cat'.

I looked up at Grampa with a perplexed questioning expression as to what exactly had happened, whom shrugged after calming Moire down where the golden dragon settle on his shoulders in a proprietary fashion with wisps of steam wafting up from her nostrils, “You get use to it.”

* * *


	23. The Reality of Parenting in the 70s, and the Nature of Mana

...Australia...Earth...1974...

“Oh...that’s almost two kilometres away in the next suburb,” a surprised Fluffy noted, after consulting Grampa’s road map as to where Bethany’s more distant girl friends said they lived, “Do your parents even know where you all are?.

“Sure. I said I was going over to Gwen’s place to play like I normally do,” Katie Lohres nodded as she pointed a distance down the road on the map, “She lives on the same block I do, over here.”

“And I said we were going to meet up with Tanya and Monica at Amelie’s house,” Gwendolynn Ivanovic smiled as she pointed a good half a kilometre down the road on the next block over on the road map while petting the big orange cat, “It was along the way we were going to Bethany’s place.”

“From my house over here, we all said we were going to play at Jacqueline’s house over here, which is closest to Bethany’s place and your house,” Amelie Sorensen said proudly as she pointed to a place approximately four hundred meters away on the road map, which was now getting unreasonably far for a an unescorted four year old little girl, or even a group of them for that matter, to walk.

“And once they picked me up at my house, we said we were all going to play at Bethany’s,” Jacqueline Holmes nodded in a quite reasonable manner as she traced her tiny index finger along the path they’d taken on the road map to Bethany’s place another half kilometre more meters further, before returning to playing with Fluffy’s orange pelt.

“And I told my Mom we were coming over to play with you guys,” Bethany nodded with a bright smile, “So our parents all know where we all are.”

My Grampa, Fluffy and I stared flatly at the group of pleased smiling little white girls, and I guess the three of us felt the cultural cringe of being the wrong ethnic background, skin colour or species at ground zero of a crime scene happening. The ‘White Australia’ policies had been gradually dismantled between 1949 and 1966 but there were a lot of whites who still believed they were naturally superior in the social order, not to mention cats were regarded as an invasive species in some parts of the country. 

It wasn’t until last year in 1973 that the Whitlam Government had formally passed laws to ensure that race would be totally disregarded as a component for immigration to Australia, but the Chinese community still carried quite a bit of residual sensitivities around the authorities...there were noises being made about some kind of Racial Discrimination Act going through Parliament, but that hadn’t happened in 1974 that being of a non-white ethnic background made on tread very carefully around the interpretation of the law.

“I...See,” Grampa said after a grave pause with Moire softly hissing on his right shoulder with forked tongue flickering out, contemplating the interesting emotions of mild terror of an unemployed elderly Asian male having a group of innocent smiling chatty trusting little girls playing in his house which probably wouldn’t have been a concern were he the appropriate white ancestry...and whose parents pretty much definitely didn’t have a clue where their sweet little darlings had scampered off to under their supposedly responsible parental watch.

“Um, okay – you can use our phone,” I offered, noting Grampa flinch ever so slightly as I remembered that Telecom charged 20 cents a call – a buck twenty since Bethany lived right next door and didn’t have to make a call herself. Grampa had been rationing phone calls to prevent unnecessary expenses other than the phone line rental fee, the house budget was pretty tight, “Shouldn’t you call your parents, and let them know where you are?”

Seven pairs of little girl eyes looked up blankly at me with confused incomprehension.

“Um – why?,” Tanya Armstrong, the healthy grey eyed little blonde asked with the kind of irritating wide eyed reasonableness of a young child question why things were the way they were in the world – often putting authority figures on the spot, “Getting a phone call from us would worry them.”

“My parents told me to call them only if something was wrong or I got hurt,” Amelie Sorensen nodded solemnly in deep thought, “I don’t think I’m supposed to bother them if I’m okay.”

There was something screwed up about that logic...but it made a weird kind of sense in that ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind’ way..

“My Mom knows where we all are, so she can tell anyone who asks her,” Bethany looked askance at her little friends and nodded agreeably with the two other pleased looking blondes in justifying their rationale in one of the moments which I suspect wasn’t flattering to the fair haired breed, though the redhead and three brunettes were also seriously nodding in agreement with the three blondes, “What our parents don’t know can’t worry them, right?”

“That’s sound wrong,” my head hurt trying to parse that logic of the pleased and satisfied wide eyed little girls which made perfect sense to them, even if it wasa bizarre reflection of s certain kind of truth – it just sounded wrong in the way a dumpster fire sounds so much more bad than flammables normally going up in flames, “Your parents would worry more if they can’t find where you’re supposed to be.”

“Um – why would our parents look for us when they already know where we are?,” Jacqueline Holmes looked askance at her friends with a perplexed frown for backup, “They’ve never come looking before, right?” 

I face palmed and Grampa commented dryly, “Someday, I’m going to look back on this and laugh.”

I know I live in the mid 1970s, and what constituted parental responsibilities were lax to say the least, but I’m an Asian and my parents had been somewhat more responsible than to let me wander around unsupervised like the local kids...okay, not really, now I actually thought about it.

Back when Fluffy and I lived at the restaurant with my busy parents, the only restriction they’d mentioned when I went exploring with Fluffy, was not to play on or cross the road – I’m not sure whether they meant the dead end lane at the back of the restaurant or the street the lane backed onto, but Fluffy and I took it that we had free run of the block the restaurant was on, as long as we didn’t cross any roads.

“Um, Grampa – how did you raise Dad?,” I guess my parents really were that irresponsible like everyone else, too.

“That was the Evil Grandmother’s doing,” Grampa replied gravely, the golden scaled Moire looking over his shoulder seemingly nodding with agreement through her psychic connection with Grampa, “Explains a lot, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, I suppose it does,” I reflected on my dense and implacable father’s rather notable lack of empathy and compassion twards the task of childrearing, which he’d pushed onto my very overworked and time poor Mom and left me to my own devices for great lengths of time, “Are you going to do anything, Grampa?”

Be that as it may, exploring the neighbourhood on my own worked out well. 

Fluffy and I’d made a few friends on the block in our explorations, who we would otherwise never have met back at the restaurant before moving over to Grampa’s place, where we mostly stayed put and played in the garage and backyard – having a big backyard and attached garage made a huge difference in curbing our exploration. The environment was a bit different, I think – Grampa tended to keep a much closer eye on the both of us than my busy parents ever had the time to do.

“Well, that would be the responsible thing to do, wouldn’t it?,” my Grampa rubbed his chin under the suddenly fearful scrutiny of the little girls at the prospect of adult supervision, then snorted sheepishly with a negative shake of his head, “Then again, ignorance is bliss – there are some times, Sammy, where keeping your mouth shut is the right thing to do, because it just doesn’t pay to do the responsible thing...Kirsten next door knows where all you girls are, right?”

“Ohhh,” the group of relieved cute little girls nodded sagely at the sidestepping of adult responsibility, validating their observations on how the world really worked. Life isn’t fair, or even what it’s supposed to be according to the authorities whom have their own agendas maintaining a fictional status quo to preserve their own interests, “So it’s okay for us to train how to be witches?”

“Hmmm...I’m beginning to see why the Christian church had such a bad habit of turning into pyromaniacs at the slightest hint of a supernatural outbreak,” Benjamin Llewellyn Sung pursed his lips thoughtfully at the group of possessed squeaky, chatty and curious wide eyed and excited little girls whom he’d hastily ushered into the house, and out of the public eye, “I’m not so sure about you little young playing with magic on your own.”

“But we aren’t alone, Grampa!,” a smiling Bethany Stewart protested confidently with a four year old’s logic, after she introduced Groo the Slug and the little blue and yellow furred Squishy pseudo hair ornaments her friends were wearing to the two Sungs and their cat, “I’m here with Groo, and we’re all here to play with Fluffy and Sammy.”

“Hmm,” a perplexed Benjamin found himself scratching his chin at the convoluted logic, and affirming nods from the chatty four year old girls whom were petting Fluffy and rather more cautiously touching Moire who’d moved onto the kitchen table after the initial introductions – the lax standard of Australian parenting wasn’t abnormal in the 70s, as the parents themselves had experienced similar levels of freedom in their childhood as soon as they could go exploring the neighbourhood and making friends, “Never mind, I’m getting old and forgetting what decade I’m living in. So what brings you all here, instead of playing next door at Bethany’s house?”

“We want to learn how to be a witch like Sammy,” Gwendolynn Ivanovic affirmed seriously again, not taking the subtle hint as the little redhead explained, “Bethany said that Sammy’s a witch and she’s been training with Fluffy.”

“Now we have Groos of our own, and need to know how to take care of...um, it?”

“We don’t even know what Groos are suppose to eat,” Amelie Sorensen frowned, “I fed my Groo a whole family size packet of Arnott’s biscuits this morning, and somehow it all fit inside him.”

“Um – so?,” Fluffy asked curiously, his experience with the Australian brand of cream biscuits being limited to the odd snack which Sammy shared with him.

“A family pack of Arnott’s is one and a half kilograms,” Jacqueline Holmes looked askance at the unassuming blue and yellow furred headband with small eye stalks poking, who was holding the wholesome little blue eyed blonde’s hair in place, “I just gave mine a slice of toast, and I didn’t think my Groo could eat it all until he opened his mouth wide and gobbled it all up – did yours change size?”

“Nuh-uh, my Groo just kept stuffing biscuits into his mouth until everything was gone including the plastic packaging,” Amelie shook her head, miming something enthusiastically chomping away like a sock puppet with her little hand with the eye stalks atop her fair hair bobbing, “He still looked the same tea cup size afterwards.”

“Oh, my Groo just drank my bottle of milk,” Katie Lohres looked thoughtful, the little brunette frowned upon realising the volume disparity of a teacup sized furred slug drinking the volume of a 600ml milk bottle, “How is that possible, he didn’t change size at all.”

“Oh, that’s so wrong,” Fluffy looked upset at the Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy being given the bird, “Physics breaking.”

“It’s magic,” I replied stoically, “We just haven’t gotten around to figuring how it’s done, yet.”

“I think,” Grampa scratched a restive Moire under her chin, “I’m not going to be picky as long as you kids don’t set the house on fire, so play outside where I can’t see, ‘kay?”

“Okaaaay,” Bethany and her little friends chorused agreeable.

“And you apes have the balls to call yourselves an intelligent species,” a tight lipped Fluffy twitched his whiskers as he looked askance at us with narrowed feline eyes, his tail lashing with agitated annoyance, “Don’t you people have any instincts for a smouldering dumpster fire about to burst aflame?”

“Lets not make any waves, cat,” a grimly smiling Grampa threw his hands up in that disarming ‘not my problem’ way, “This is the 70s. Shit happens – just not inside the house or anywhere I can see, ‘kay?”

“Sure, Grampa. Girls, lets move this whole witch training thing out to the garage,” I found myself emulating Grampa’s grim smile, then to Bethany and my new bright eyed girl friends, “So my Grampa has an alibi if something catches fire.”

“Good boy,” Grampa said with a thin lipped relieved Asian smile at someone else volunteering to hold the bag, “You keep an eye on the kids, Fluffy.”

“Hurrr,” Fluffy bowed his head and paw palmed his brow at being bagged with the responsibility, apparently being the only adult present with any maturity, even if he was the cat.

* * *

“You know...this looks so suspicious in a really bad incriminating way?,” Fluffy commented as he studied the mound of white powder in the plastic container on the garage work bench, after we’d moved thing down away from Grampa’s line of sight so he could plead ignorance if awkward questions were asked, “Good thing I’m a cat. I don’t think my species have ever done drugs like you apes, so I’ve got a pretty good alibi if you guys get busted.”

“Catnip,” I corrected the orange furball’s slandering of the human character...actually, the truth kind of stings, “You girls ate this stuff?”

“It’s really yummy sherbet,” Bethany said as she held up her sock slug Groo, “Groo says it’s okay.”

“Groo,” the sock slug bobbed its eye stalks in apparent agreement with the blonde’s statement.

For those of you who don’t know the recipe, sherbet is made of aeroplane jelly crystals, icing sugar, citric acid and baking soda to give it that fizzy tang and bite. At least, that’s how my parents made the stuff for desserts at the restaurant...what Groo the Slug had barfed up was something which tasted very similar to the human palate, but was infused with residual dormant Squishy. 

“Bees make honey, and that’s perfectly okay to eat,” Katie Lohres noted thoughtfully, the young brunette reached atop her head and felt the sentient furred blue and yellow scrunchy with eyestalks holding her hair in a ponytail, “I thought that’s just how sherbet is made.”

“Maybe Big Groo’s like a queen bee?,” the brunette Jacqueline Holmes suggested helpfully, glancing up at the very slight presence on her own head, “And the little Groos are like worker bees?”

Eyestalks craned in Jacqueline’s direction at the statement...then began bobbing in apparent agreement. 

From what Fluffy and I’d gather of Squishy culture thus far, taking bites out of strangers is a demonstration of friendly intent. This is due the Squishy outlook that having a part of a stranger become a part of them is the easiest way to understand where they’re coming from within reason, it doesn’t ameliorate a total incomprehension of having taken a bite out of an entity from a totally alien environment – like humans.

The ‘slug sherbet’, was a work around to the Squishy custom of exchanging friendly bites.

Groo the Slug and its Minions were aware of the detrimental effects of ripping out a mouthful of human soul and plugging the gap with a piece of its own from the ‘Rules of Edibles’ Fluffy and I’d impressed upon its parent Snarf the Wombat and Squee the Spider, so it had replaced the traditional soul devouring with a much more gradual, non-destructive human friendly exchange that wouldn’t turn its host into a mindless cannibalistic psychopath.

“Squishy are more like jellyfish than bees,” I poked my finger into the powdery sugar, and rubbed it between my fingers thoughtfully, “And this stuff remains a part of its original source, than something separate like honey.”

“Ohhh,” the girls gathered around the dinner table, chorused with some confusion at the relevance.

“Is that bad?,” the little redhead, Gwendolynn Ivanovic, wrinkled her nose defensively at the new information, “It still tastes like sherbet you buy at the store, and yummy.”

“This stuff is a dormant Squishy,” Fluffy squinted at the glittery white powder, then suspiciously up at the colourful Lovecraftian slugs roosting on the little girls, “You guys aren’t into building domestic housing made of cake, confectionery and candy, are you? There’s this old German fairytale about a pair of kids stumbling across some witch’s house built of sugary stuff involving a cannibalistic witch...I can sort of understand a person going off their rocker on a sugar rich diet, and some derange ape getting a case of the munchies is something I can totally see happening if one of you guys exchanged bites with them.”

“Groo?,” the big slug in Bethany’s arms contemplated the cat’s query, and shrugged in an odd way which temporarily imparted a suggesting it had a neck and shoulders, before collapsing into its boneless sock slug shape as a frowning Bethany hugged it against her chest.

“Slug Sherbet is still yummy to eat,” the athletic blonde, Tanya Armstrong stubbornly affirmed. Neither she or her friends were about to be told otherwise, and she reached up and patted the eldritch blue and yellow furred headband with eyestalks atop her fair blonde hair, “We’re much closer friends now he’s shared sweets with me, right?”

“Groo,” the miniature slug masquerading as an unobtrusive everyday hair accessory, bobbed its eyestalks in agreement.

Fluffy frowned suspiciously, cocked his head a moment in deep thought...then his eyes widened and went round as a sudden thought occurred to him,” Ohh...ohhhh...OHHhhh.”

“What are you moaning about, cat?,” I asked, distracted from examining the suspicious white powdery stuff, “I can tell you’ve just had a nasty upsetting thought.”

“Hmmm hmmm,” a bowed head Fluffy said as he gestured with his paw for everyone to come closer, “Let me tell you a Biblical story – while I’m not sure how this is how it went down, it’s at least plausible...”

We crowded closer to the work bench in the garage as Fluffy raised his head and began speaking in his high pitched catty voice...

* * *

In John 6:53–57, Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 

Upon hearing these words, many of Jesus’ followers said, “This is a hard teaching” (verse 60), and many of them actually stopped following Him that day (verse 66).

The statement is puzzling, even though Christians manage to swallow the concept of their saviour endorsing ritualistic cannibalism, some didn’t and turned away from the teachings…well, even in modern times those words still doesn’t really make a great deal of sense. That is, unless you shift the context of just who Yeshua of Nazareth was addressing with that speech, and that the followers of the early cult who overheard the statement by their prophet were just unsuspecting bystanders to the conversation.

You see, that particular puzzling invitation made by Yeshua of Nazareth makes perfect sense…from a Squishy point of view, which is probably where that odd Christian saying originated, ‘The Devil Quotes Scripture’.

After all Squishies in their native environment, take bites out of each as a sign of friendship and understanding – and here was a guy who was openly extending an invitation to roost on him. So whilst the followers of the possibly deranged holy man whom would one day come to be known as ‘Jesus, Son of God’, were stumbling about in a daze while looking at each other and the reformed prostitute dubiously whilst their minds wandered in the gutter as to whether Yeshua wasn’t asking them to metaphorically go cannibal on him…well, let’s just say that amongst one of the side benefits of having a Squishy roosting on one’s soul, is that the underutilized soul undergoes what amounts to a callisthenic regime which binds it more strongly to the physical body.

It only ever made sense, if you were connected to a Squishy.

There have been many reported cases of ghouls and zombies throughout human history, of people mysteriously rising from the grave after death…well, a sufficiently stubborn Squishy refusing to allow the soul they’ve established a tenancy on to dissipate after the passing of the flesh, may well be behind those tales of the undead. 

Perhaps the Squishy decided that the fire and pitchfork brigade are too big a pain to deal with after they’ve severely damaged their human shaped ride, ‘absorbing’ the soul and physical manifestation of the body into itself in a blaze of transformative light and energy…which probably looks remarkably like you’d imagine some proto-Christian prophet ascending back into the Heavens.

And therefore, the Squishified human soul attains ‘immortality’ in that act of Ascension into the ‘Higher Planes’.

It makes a disturbing amount of sense from that perspective, and also explains quite a great deal about the other ‘Gods’ and ‘Goddesses’ of pre-monotheistic human religious beliefs whom were likely real people at one stage before the Squishy roosting on them helped them up to a higher bodiless plane of existence.

Once the background of ‘Ascension’ becomes known – heck, Zeus was said to have very Squishy-like matter-energy transformation and shape shifting powers, such as a transforming golden shower fetish while cruising for a lay, and while that might be an allusion to another sexual perversion involving a full bladder than the one the Greeks lent their nationality to – the religious smorgasbord of resultant popular Faith from such religious beliefs are pretty much a Squishy’s all you can eat banquet which encourages them to hang around…a lot of the more bizarre attributes of modern religious rites, suddenly become abnormally normal in light of that revelation.

Okay,...so what does that piece of errant knowledge have to do with a group of seven little girls, a little Asian boy and his pet cat whom have some pretty ancient combat nanites of alien origins running around inside them making modifications to the bog standard human genetic OS, his grandfather and seven little girls whom were now host to the entities known as ‘Squishy’?

Well...those kids and the cat were discussing that white powdery substance, which the Christian religious symbolic imbibed sweet wafers of ‘bread’ as a substitute for the ‘Blood of Christ’, concerning ‘Manna’...so, just what was the stuff, which the ancestors of the Hebrews apparently ate so much of as they wandered around lost in the desert, that it affected the proto-Israelites so badly it affected their mental acuity like kids on a sugar rush, eventually driving some of them nuts and scar the survivors of the ordeal into establishing religious orthodoxy?

* * *

“This...,” I declared after a few moments having to listened to Fluffy’s disturbingly plausible story, and scrutinising the cheap semi-opaque plastic food container which looked suspiciously like the ones my parent’s restaurant used for take away, that contained sparkly sugary powder that was infused with dormant ‘Squishy’ energy, “Is Mana.”

“Ohhhh,” the group of impressed wide eyed four year old little girls gushed, looking curiously at Groo the Slug whom was being held captive in Bethany’s arms.

“So that’s what slug sherbet’s really called?,” Bethany Stewart asked, after a pause to look at her friends whom weren’t forthcoming as to why they were impressed with the odd word, “Mana, is edible magic.”

“Ohhhh!,” the nodding little girls said rather more enthusiastically.

“And that’s how fucked up Human religions really are,” an unimpressed orange cat stated flatly.

* * *


	24. The 70s...When kids weren't swaddled in packing foam.

…Australia…Earth…1974...

There’s an odd phenomena known as the ‘Popsicle Index’, by which a community is gauged to be safe enough for an innocent little child to walk the distance to the local corner shop to buy an ice cream, and come back home without parental supervision

While in later decades this distance would shrink dramatically to the point that kids were rendered antisocial basket cases whom pretty much kept under 24/7 parental supervision, that the ‘safe’ distance pretty much approximated the 1.5m spherical reach of an adult grabbing their errant child from wandering off…things were different in the 70s.

It wasn’t that uncommon, for young children to wander off to the ‘corner shop’ a block or two away with pocket change in hand, free of parental oversight that their precious darling might get robbed on the way, or the condemnation of the judgmental authorities for parental neglect.

On the contrary, parents of the era only really became concerned when the kids failed to turn up for lunch or dinner after embarking on a ‘play date’, that often turned out to be considerably further than where their parental responsibilities assumed their precious rug rat would be.

But that was just the norm in Australian during the mid 70s...which is why Kirsten Stewart hadn’t been particularly concerned, when her daughter Bethany had taken the rare initiative to announce she was going over next door to the Sung’s place with her new friends who’d turned up on the doorstep, to show off her sock slug Groo to the neighbour’s grandson now they’d returned from their camping trip.

She’d heard the squeaky voices of the children and glimpsed them playing some kind of ‘Dodgeball’ based game on her way to the neighbour’s front door, but hadn’t interrupted their play as she thought nostalgically of her own not so distant girlhood where she too had indulged in her inner tomboy in such activities.

Well, Kirsten thought as she knocked on the Sung’s front door with a straw basket of freshly baked crumbly Chinese style egg yolk buttery cookies which old man Sung had magnanimously shared the recipe with her a while ago that was a rather massive step up from the fairy bread she’d once resorted to feeding her daughter, during one of those engaging extended friendly over the fence discussions with the elderly neighbour whilst he’d been pottering around the garden with his grandson.

“Hello – Kirsten?,” Benjamin said, briefly pausing after opening the front door to see who was there.

“Hello Benjamin, I’ve baked some cookies and brought them over to feed the kids,” Kirsten smiled as she lifted a corner of the chequered red and white cheese cloth covering the basket, to briefly reveal the lovely fresh baked scent of tanned brown small bite sized Chinese cookies that were just right for the slavering mouths of hungry four year olds, “How’s Bethany and your grandson doing with their new friends?”

“I know nothing – ,” Benjamin began, paused as if something invisible sitting on his shoulder had given him a good annoyed flick upside of the head, before the elderly Asian recovered and replied rather less defensively, “I mean, the kids moved their activities down to the garage a few hours ago, and pretty much told me to keep out of their play date activities. Come in – the kids should be getting hungry about now and the cookies are welcome.”

Kirsten smiled as her past sporadic discussions with Benjamin had indicated that the elderly Asian’s household was on a rather tight budget, and was ushered inside as her gaze scrutinised the housekeeping. The elder Asian man’s house was by no means dilapidated and didn’t seem representative of a man scrimping to save every penny, as Benjamin evidently made some demonstrably successful attempt at maintenance since the last time she’d been invited inside the house. The decorative plasterwork and antique Federation era floral wallpaper in the corridor seemed almost brand new and freshly put up as opposed to the previously faded worn appearance, rejuvenated of the dings and blemishes accumulated over the decades.

The mother of Bethany Stewart, literally couldn’t ‘See’ the bright golden dragon draped around Benjamin’s shoulders as her cultural and religious indoctrination edited out the aberration from her conscious thoughts...in ancient times, the effect would have been called either a ‘Curse’ or a ‘Geas’, compelling and imposed edited reality upon what was actually there through an external force of will.

Religions are creepy that way.

“I like what you’ve done with the housekeeping,” Kirsten complimented approvingly as only a full time housewife could judge the effort which Benjamin had evidently gone, peering more closely to the rejuvenated red floral wallpaper which had seemingly regained its long hidden rosy red lustre, “How did you remove the dirt and freshen up the colours so much?”

Benjamin flinched, glanced at his right shoulder at Moire a moment with perplexed furrowed brow, his developing psychic connection sending a back and forth query as to what the Squishies had been doing to renovate the house, before replying with a rather conventional answer, “Uh – slightly damp soapy newspaper, a sponge and gentle scrubbing with lots of care?”

“You did a very good job refurbishing,” a distracted Kirsten complimented as her inner domesticated house wife reflected on that morsel of hitherto unknown housekeeping lore, before turning to Benjamin, “If I’d known wallpaper cleaned up this well, I wouldn’t have gotten Greg to strip down the faded antique wallpaper when we first moved into our house.”

“Uh, yes – well what’s done is done and...ah, Kirsten...” a twitching Benjamin watched an unnatural monstrous primeval ripple of a disturbingly reptilian household spirit, ‘swim’ underneath the red floral pattern wallpaper which seemed to have momentarily acquired a liquid property behind his unsuspecting redhead neighbour. Fortunately, it smoothed out before whatever supernatural horror underneath the floral pattern wallpaper could break through the surface as he forced a passive Asian grandfatherly smile and ushered Kirsten along to the relative safety of the kitchen, “I’m sure Bethany will be very happy you baked cookies for everyone.”

“Oh yes, I’ve been getting much better making tasty crumbly cake cookies with the recipe you gave me. Bethany just loves eating them and it’s much better than the sugary fairy bread I’ve been making do with,” the oblivious Kirsten said as her Asian neighbour ushered her to the kitchen, and held out the straw basket for Benjamin to sample a cookie for approval, “You must try one.”

“Sure,” Benjamin said as he picked out a cookie between his thumb and index finger, and took a bite followed by an approving nod, “It’s good – it’s very good.”

“Thank you,” a smiling Kirsten demurely looked down at the praise from the man who’d given her the recipe, so she missed the rest of the cookie suddenly vanished from Benjamin’s fingers as the curious Moire sitting on Benjamin’s shoulder, snatched it away with forked tongue and swallowed it whole. Benjamin looked mildly annoyed at his right shoulder a moment before his expression smoothed by the time Kirsten looked back at him, “Greg likes them too. Between him and Bethany, it’s a full time job restocking the cookie jar – would you like another?”

“Oh, I think I better stop or there won’t be anything left for the kids,” Benjamin replied soberly, rubbing his thumb and index finger together then dusted his hands and opened the refrigerator door to pull out a 600ml glass bottle of milk, which he received as part of the weekly food supplies from the restaurant his grandson’s parents ran, “I’m out of juice, so milk will have to do – hmmm, come to think of it, there’s that tin of Milo in the cupboard I haven’t opened yet.”

“Oh, let me help,” Kirsten offered as she set down the basket of cookies on the kitchen table, and opened the cupboard Benjamin had been looking at as he held the bottle of milk at the opened fridge, where he could see the monstrous multi-eyed grey furred spider whom stared up at the mother as it pressed itself into the scant cover of the shadows under the cupboard shelf, “Found it.”

The redhead mother bent over obliviously, seeing only the bright green tin of Milo chocolate powder, and reached past under the giant spider that was visible to Benjamin from where he was standing, but she herself couldn’t see under the shelf because of the angle the arachnid was hiding under the shelf. The spider became one with the shadows while Benjamin held his breath for the inevitable blood curdling scream of female horror...which failed to materialise as a pleased Kirsten straightened with the tin of Milo and closed the cupboard door.

“Oh, we need cups too,” Benjamin clutched at the front of his shirt as he blew his breath out at the reprieve as set down the bottle of milk next to Kirsten’s basket of cookies. He retreated to the small storage closet at the close call to get his thumping heartbeat back down. 

The paper cups and cardboard plates were kept in the seldom opened storage closet otherwise known as a ‘pantry’, as the last time in the distant past in better times he’d last had a barbeque party with friends and family...the large oversized beady eyed brown furred wombat hiding in the closet, exchanged looks with Benjamin whom noted the rather disturbing black hole rimmed with flashing arcane purple energies which had been excavated in the pantry floor, “Where did I leave those cups, paper plates and spoons?”

The large brown wombat looking up at Benjamin whom hadn’t really been expecting a response, reached into the light devouring black hole and pulled out a plastic shrink wrapped stack of paper cups, plates and plastic spoons which it silently handed over to the elderly Asian, whom stoically took the procured picnic items and gravely closed the pantry door on the wombat’s eldritch tunnelling activities which led to regions which Benjamin preferred not to think too hard about.

“Okay, I think we got everything,” Benjamin announced faintly, suddenly resolving to get Kirsten out of the house before something else crawled out from the woodworks, “Lets go see what kind of mischief the kids have gotten up to.”

Benjamin and the totally unsuspecting Kirsten brought the snacks from the house to the detached garage out in the backyard where the kids were playing, without any further overt intrusions from the supernatural world.

* * *

“Come on, we haven’t got all day,” Tanya Armstrong taunted and grinned eagerly with a curtain rod in her little hands which she held up defensively in front of her and back to the garage and ready to scoot sideways, facing her equally eager and determined friends down whom were poised with tennis balls ready to give the young athletic little blonde a pasting.

Tanya’s grinning cherubic little face was a study of confidence, concentration and anticipation which the miniature Minion Groo holding her blonde hair gathered back in a ponytail as it sucked on her scalp, was happily feeding upon. Tanya was wearing a blindfold, and she was Seeing the world around her far more clearly than she ever had with her own eyes, as her Minion Groo clinging to her hair and scalp symbiotically fed her what the world really looked like to the miniature Familiar’s own senses...and it was glorious.

Tanya felt alive and almost vibrating with suppressed boundless energy...more alive than she’d ever felt before in her young life as she felt the alien sensation of ‘Seeing’ with senses other than her grey eyes as she trained her newly discovered Witch senses through her newly formed connection with her Familiar Minion, after consuming a portion of ‘Mana’ – aka, Slug Sherbet, before Sammy and Fluffy began teaching everyone how to train their Witch senses and develop their connection with their sluggy furred Familiars.

“Payback’s a Bitch,” Fluffy replied in a decidedly predatory feline fashion, his claws sinking into the green felt of the tennis ball in his paw as he grasped it more firmly. As a cat, he was no stranger to having things thrown at him but Tanya had gotten him good with an unusually accurate fastball, “I’ve a bruise with your name on it, Goldilocks.”

“Come get some – um, ya pile of walking carrot peels,” the insult came off weak and lame but Tanya wasn’t distracted by the big orange cat’s threat, her newly acquired supernatural senses focusing equally on her friends whom were rather looking forward to getting some payback for the bruises she’d given them whilst developed the Witch training game, “What are ya waiting for?”

Early trial and error had taught the girls, cat and boy not to swing the curtain rail like a bat, but to use it to block – and where they couldn’t block, to get out of the way of the tennis balls being thrown at them. While taking turns being pelted, Sammy, Fluffy and the girls had not only discovered their inner Witchyness, but also the telekinetic assisted fastball which added a new dimension of danger and implied hurt to the kind of weak inaccurate limp wristed throws a four year old and cat could normally deal.

Using supernaturally honed sensed to block and avoid on the receiving end while running and dodging, had rapidly became the name of the game.

Jacqueline Holmes wound her arm back awkwardly and tossed in the kind of throw you’d expect of a four year old girl, but her Minion caught her thoughts and gave the ball a sharp kinetic assist and spin which made it curve wickedly by the time the brown haired girl lost her psychic ‘grip’ on the speeding green felt missile, as Tanya’s own Minion accelerated the athletic blonde’s thoughts and projected the trajectory path into Tanya’s mind.

Tanya deftly skipped to the side as her Minion fed information into her mind which to a watching observer, it would appear the agile little blonde girl possessed seemingly preternaturally good motor co-ordination skills as she dismissively used the curtain rod to deflect the fast moving tennis ball away from her body, even as eight other tennis balls from a cat, an Asian boy and her six friends launched at her.

Tanya couldn’t avoid all of them, her body simply couldn’t move as fast as her Squishy accelerated thoughts needed to escape. Self preservation had, however, allowed the athletic girl to sense which of the ‘slow’ moving tennis balls weren’t being steered as the thrower had lost control, that she could skip aside and let them bounce harmlessly off the brick wall behind her with loud distorted stretched out ‘spock’ sounds to her accelerated hearing.

However, the same kind of psychic kinetic assist also provided a last ditch Squishy ‘air shield’ to cushion impact which did make it through to hit her. Not surprisingly, the malicious cat and his ungentlemanly male owner were the biggest threat to Tanya, as the balls they threw had homed in on her like they had missile guidance rather than on unassisted ballistics of the new Witches, as the tennis balls the girls threw moved too fast for their budding Minion assisted control after a certain point...it was a trade off of maintaining control, as the Squishy assisted psychic ‘grip’ could only be maintained under a certain speed that Tanya could just avoid them.

Fluffy and Sammy didn’t have that problem. 

“Oooof – owww!,” Tanya squealed involuntarily at being branded after deflecting a ball she couldn’t avoid launched by the vicious cat with her relatively thin curtain rod, only to be hit by the other thrown by the sadistically laughing Asian boy – like pet, like owner.

Magic air cushion or not, it still stung as the laughing and cheering girls, boy and his cat chased after the tennis balls they’d launched which had ricocheted off Tanya or bounced off the brick wall behind her. Tanya dropped her curtain rod as she peeled of her blindfold to inspect her honourably acquired ‘wound’, the hit from the ball was hard enough that it would probably bruise a little – just another badge of honour in the life of a proud independent minded child living in the 70s.

And the dodgeball game also fostered much closer bonding with the Minion roosting on the girls to whom they were becoming very Familiar with – no pain, no gain.

Before the squeaky children could embark on another round of developing possibly disturbing sadomasochistic tendencies, they were interrupted by the appearance of ‘Grampa’ Sung and Mrs Stewart. Fluffy dropped on all fours as the battered little girls and boy suddenly became wary at the intrusion of adults whom might put an end to their violent but fun variation of dodgeball.

Bethany’s nose twitched, before she squealed with hungry excitement as the calories she’d burned off playing made itself felt, “Cookies!”

“Bethany – oh God, look at all those scrapes and bruises!,” the redhead mother exclaimed upon laying eyes on her child, before noticing the other children were just as dishevelled banged up if not more so from the last time she’d seen them when they came over to play with the Sung’s boy.

“Yeah! Look at this one, Mommy,” Bethany trotted forth along with her hungry friends and proudly held up her left arm, lifting her sleeve were a nicely purpling bruise was forming – Groo the Slug sat atop her head and was carrying out accelerated healing to its primary host that Bethany only had cosmetic visual effects to her injuries, rather than the pain and stiffness of a bruising though Bethany had wept like the little girl she was the first time she got branded with a tennis ball. The sock slug to all intents and purposes looked like a blue and yellow Parammatta Eels footy beanie, “Isn’t it great?”

Kirsten was speechless a moment as she and Benjamin were swarmed by hungry and thirsty chatty little kids whom shamelessly raided her cookie basket as Benjamin began dispensing Milo and milk in paper cups to the thirsty mob of ankle biters. The redhead mother reflected on her own tomboyish childhood and the scrapes and injuries she’d accumulated, discovering another aspect of parenthood which must have afflicted her own concerned parents.

“Wow, that’s a big one,” Kirsten suppressed the instinctive urge to go 100% Protective Mommy at the injuries her child was so proudly showing off. Though the memories were dimmed with the years and abraded by motherhood, Kirsten distantly remembered that she was damned proud of the cuts and bruises she’d earned running around the neighbourhood when she was young, “Did you have fun?”

Bethany nodded firmly with shiny green eyes as she hungrily devoured two cookies which were fast disappearing from her mother’s basket, “Lots.”

The redhead mother relaxed and smiled serenely in a fashion she’d seen on the face of her own mother which she now suddenly understood. You can’t stop your child from growing up or getting hurt along the way – trying, only delayed the inevitable which made the repercussions that much destructive when the kids were at an age to do some real damage before they learned they were responsible for their own actions.

“That’s fine then,” Kirsten found herself saying, repeating her own mother’s measured tone even as her inner mother raged at the gates of her self control, “Just be more careful not to get hurt playing, okay?”

“’Kay, Mommy,” Bethany said as she took a paper cup of chocolate flavoured milk which Sammy handed her, drinking the milk with granules of undissolved Milo floating on top as Groo the Slug utilised the new resources to accelerate healing, “Groo’s looking after me, so I’m not hurting.” 

The redhead mother smiled as her child happily laughed at the signature milk moustache her new cadre of friends now sported after thirstily guzzling their milk, and exchanged stoical glances with her neighbour whom was patiently listening to the adventures of his own grandson and the bruises the boy had acquired.

It was just another normal parenting day, in the life of an imaginative child of the 70s. 

* * *


	25. Grownups Can't See Squishies?!?

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Bethany held her breath as she looked at her mother whom was seated on the lawn next to her, as the golden Chinese style serpent dismounted from Benjamin’s shoulders and sinuously bounced across to them on stubby paws to the straw basket which Kirsten had brought the crumbly Chinese cookies in.

Moire proceeded to shamelessly pilfer one of the larger crumbs from the basket which had broken off one of the cookies which had been shared out with everyone.

The golden scaled serpent held the partial piece of cookie in its oddly cute paws, nibbling on the treat in a curiously hamsterlike fashion as her metallic golden scales glittering in the daylight to such an extent that it was impossible to miss the mythical creature from a distance, let alone right beside her mother next to the mostly empty cookie basket which she’d set down beside her.

“Mommy,” Bethany asked after a few moments of subdued alarm with a curious Groo the Slug in her lap, whom had dismounted from pretending to be a beanie on the blonde girl’s head, “Have you met Moire?”

“You’ve got so many new friends now, which one is Moire again?,” a motherly Kirsten gushed as she turned to look at the group of round eyed little girls whom had stopped chatting with the young Asian boy whose big fluffy orange pet cat wore a panicked look, to stare at the redhead mother with bated breath for the inevitable blood curdling scream as she focused on Monica Aoife O’Reilly, “Oh, that’s right – you’re Moire, aren’t you?”

Only, that didn’t happen as Kirsten looked right past the rather big and unmistakable Chinese dragon sitting up on her hindquarters looking eye to eye with her, without so much as batting her green eyes at the mythical creature munching on the piece of cookie.

“Um – no. I’m Monica,” Monica replied with morbid fascination, being unnerved enough to just state the truth despite earlier warning not to let adults know about the ‘Big Secret’ – aside from Grampa Sung, of course, “Moire’s the gold Chinese dragon sitting right next to you.”

Benjamin whom had been attempting to quietly creep up on Moire to drag her back into cover, along with Sammy and Fluffy whom had been glancing at Bethany whom was sitting with Groo the Slug in her lap in her mother’s plain sight, face palmed as they winced at the exposure. The unnaturally quiet group of little girls sitting on the lawn in the Sung’s backyard and watching the train wreck, involuntarily sucked in their breaths and stared at the Chinese dragon whom cocked her head quizzically as she polished off the fragment of cookie she held in her forepaws.

Coincidentally, the line of sight of everyone just happened to intersect at the empty straw basket which Moire was standing behind.

Kirsten paused as she looked at the basket, then being a good parent whom encouraged her daughter’s rich childhood imagination, pantomimed patting something which she presumed was an imaginary animal which the children had decided was sleeping in the cookie basket. She made a clawing motion with her other hand and uttered, “Growl.”

Moire whom was next to the basket, blinked at the oblivious Kirsten with a patent ‘WTF are you doing?’ look of bafflement, then craned her head over the basket Kirsten was pretending to pet some invisible creature only the redhead mother could see, to try and discern whether this was some odd human ritual like that strange and puzzling religion thing that happened in places called ‘church’.

“Hmm,” a sceptical Bethany stuck the tip of her thumb in her mouth, and nibbled on it with a nervous thoughtful frown as her mother made pretend clawing motions in her direction and growling noises – not that Bethany was a thumb sucker having broken that habit a few months ago because she wasn’t a baby anymore, but her mother’s antics to pet an imaginary animal was just that painful to watch were before she’d discovered the existence of Squishies, it might have been entertaining, “You can’t see her, Moire the Dragon, can you?”

“Of course I can, Bethany,” Kirsten assured her daughter with a confident mother’s smile, patting empty air above the straw basket to the befuddlement of the golden dragon whom was squinting at the emptiness, “See, I’m playing with Moire and she’s got such big lovely scales?”

Moire blinked serpentine eyes at the redhead, then patted her rather small and fine scales on her side as if to check they were still there.

“You know,” Katie Lohres observed flatly with a child’s foresight to her friends whom were watching the redhead adult’s antics with mixed expressions, “Suddenly, the adult world makes a lot more sense than it did.”

“It’s kinda scary, isn’t it?,” Gwendolynn Ivanovic wrinkled her nose at a bizarre perturbing thought which suddenly entered her childish outlook, “That might be us one day.”

"Ewww," Jacqueline Holmes shook he head distastefully, "That's so wrong, Gwen."

“I see,” Benjamin rubbed the beard stubble on his chin thoughtfully as he decided to stop and watch, the lack of response from Kirsten suddenly making a whole lot more sense as a puzzled Moire deftly evaded Kirsten pretend petting, to snag another large crumb which she munched on while observing the entertaining redhead adult with round serpentine eyes, “So this is where that animals, old people and young children saying comes from.”

“Meow,” Fluffy bared fangs and grinned at Sammy with a ‘Humans, Meh’ look of feline disdain.

“Lets...just play along,” Sammy whispered to the girls with a forced smile, “Stop looking at me like that, Fluffy, I’m not responsible for how fucked up the adult world is.”

The big cat snorted sagely with an exasperated roll of his catty eyes.

“But – but it’s so embarrassing to pretend to play with make believe animals,” Jacqueline whispered back and shook her head again with a grimace to the bemused looks and snorts of her peers, “It looks retarded.”

”Hrrrrrm,” Fluffy said, placing a tufted paw on Jacqueline’s arm with an amused catty ‘take one for the team’ feline smirk. After a moment, the brown haired girl patted Fluffy’s plush fur with a resigned look of a child having to play along with an adult’s whims ‘just because’.

Sammy got up where he was sitting amidst his new friends and Fluffy, to kneel down beside the basket next to Kirsten with Moire watching him curiously as to what he was up to. The four year old boy pretended to pick up something from the basket to Moire’s suddenly half lidded look, whom after a soft hiss of her forked tongue and a sample of the boy’s surface thoughts, decided to take the opportunity to slip into the young boy’s arms as he staggered back to the waiting girls and cat with his burden, “Okay, I got Moire – just pretend to pet her, okay.”

Kirsten looked on curiously at the neighbour’s ‘pretend’ play acting, which was quite credible that she could almost imagine the invisible creature coiled around the boy.

“Wait a moment,” Amelie Sorensen’s wholesome blonde features looked decidedly perplexed, “Moire’s really in your arms, so aren’t we not pretending?”

“Well, at least we aren’t coming off looking like a bunch of retarded kids,” Monica replied as she reached out and patted Moire’s surprisingly warm and supple golden scales, as soon as Sammy sat back down amongst them, “Hey, this isn’t so bad.”

“Mommy, I’m going to play with Moire too,” Bethany announced as she bounced onto her feet and hauled up the blue and yellow furred bulk of Groo the Slug in her arms, and went over to pet the preening golden dragon whom had occupied Sammy’s lap with the rest of her oohing and ahhing friends whom were enthusiastically rubbing their tiny inquisitive hands over the mythical creature’s scales.

Kirsten watched her daughter join the group of children pretending quite realistically to play with an invisible animal, and giggled as she commented to Benjamin, “This brings back memories of my childhood, I use to have a made up invisible friend too.”

“Fascinating,” Benjamin replied as his earlier suspicions were confirmed, musing on the thought that those make believe invisible friends some children seem to spontaneously invent to play with, mightn’t be as imaginary as the adult world generally presumed, “It’s a big world, filled with wonders. Would you like to come up for a cup of tea, Kirsten? The children seem to have things well in hand playing with Moire – er, their imaginary friend.”

“I’d like that, thank you, Ben,” Kirsten replied as she got up and dusted her pale green sundress – yes, this was the 70s and respectable suburban housewives still made the effort to dress up when they went to make a social visit to the neighbour, “Bethany, be careful of the dragon – teeheehee.”

“Yes Mommy,” Bethany chimed back with a flinch at her mother’s amused giggles, then her voice dropped to a whisper only her little conspirators could hear, “Grownups can’t see Squishies.”

The children petting the golden dragon nodded gravely as Kirsten walked back to the main house with Grampa Sung for the offered cup of tea, their malleable young minds had previously tried to grasp the puzzling adult world they lived in with numerous failed attempts to make sense of why the grownups kept on making such a big mess of things...it suddenly made a whole lot of sense, now they understood the so called ‘responsible’ grownups around them – at least the one nerve wracking sample in the form of Bethany’s mother, had demonstrated a complete inability to see the ‘real world’ as it was.

The children’s playtime with Moire ended abruptly as the dragon slithered out of Sammy’s lap and padded after Benjamin whom was leaving with Kirsten.

The dragon was, after all, quite Possessive of its chosen Host.

And then, it was back to training to be Witches.

* * *


	26. Miscommunications and PTSD aberrations...

...Australia...Earth...1974...

“Um...my Mom says not to get into strange cars,” Tanya Armstrong frowned as she scrutinised the well used Landrover which Grampa had backed out of the garage, “And that car looks pretty strange.”

“It’s boxy and held together by nuts and bolts,” Gwendolynn Ivanovic nodded critically with her athletic grey eyed blonde friend’s prognosis, “Not like our car at all.”

“Yeah, my Mom says the same thing about strange cars too, and Grampa’s car looks weird now I think about it, Sammy,” a thoughtful Bethany chimed in with her new friends, as her mother had also given her that odd caution not to get into strange cars too which hadn’t made a lot of sense. It was just another strange and puzzling adult wisdom kids took onboard without asking why, “Maybe we should wait to my Dad comes back from work, to drive everyone home in our car?”

I had to admit that the trusty old Landrover did look odd compared to the other more refined boxy looking cars on the road which were the norm in the 70s, now my attention was brought to it. Unlike normal cars I’d seen like my father’s Leyland P76 – my father said it was a gas guzzling lemon despite what the magazines said it being car of the year, whatever that meant – the Landrover’s aluminium panels were literally bolted on and Grampa said that it even came with a special Landrover wrench you had to tighten everything up every so often like a Meccano set, least something fall off while you’re driving.

Maybe it was just my four year old’s sense of aesthetics being off, but Grampa’s Landrover was just something Grampa uniquely drove – it was Grampa’s car, and despite it’s odd boxy appearance you could take apart with a wrench, it wasn’t strange to me at all as you could conveniently bolt things back on which fell off...besides, my parents hadn’t given me that odd caution the girls had received, concerning strange cars.

“Um, it’s a car,” I said flatly at the incomprehensible infectious trepidation which had struck the girls upon being offered a ride home, my connoisseur’s appreciation of vehicles approximating my Grampa’s appreciation of ‘function over form’, “It makes loud noises, it moves, and takes you to places you can’t be bothered with walking to on your own feet. End story.”

“My Mom, says it’s okay as long as there’s an adult or people you know,” Katie Lohres said with a confident four year old girl’s comprehension of the adult world, “It’s okay because we met Grampa this morning, so we know him now, right?”

“Just get in the car, little girl,” Fluffy cooed and pawed at the brunette’s backside in an exaggerated manner like he was groping it, leering with a fanged predatory smile which somehow came off...wrong, “We’re going for a ride.”

“Teehee, you’re funny Fluffy,” Katie giggled as she groped the pawing orange cat right back, combing her tiny fingers in plush fluffy orange fur and looking to her dubious looking friends, at doing something they’d been told by their parents not to do, “See, Fluffy says it’s okay.”

“Mrrrm – you’re suppose to squeal like a little girl and act scared,” Fluffy said flatly as he relented from putting paws on the oblivious little girl whom seemed fine with being molested by a cat, having got a reaction other than the one he was expecting, “It’s what you’d normally do when someone tells you to get into a strange car.”

“Um, why?,” a confused Gwendolynn Ivanovic cocked her head, and joined in with everyone else who’d taken the cue from Katie to start petting Fluffy in hopes they’d get a petting from the cat too, “Like Katie said, we know Grampa and you’re vouching to get in the strange car too. That makes it okay, right?”

“Wait, let’s clear this up – Grampa!,” I called out to Grampa who’d switched off the engine, and was getting out of the driver’s side to go around the back and open up the tailgate for us while we’d been waiting off to the side, “The girls say they shouldn’t get into a strange car.”

“That’s right,” Grampa paused at my statement, then nodded seriously, “If a stranger tells you to get into their car, then you girls scream as loud as you can and trying to attract people’s attention while you run away to look for a grownup you know, like one of your mothers. Come on and get in the car, it’s getting late and your parents will be wondering where you’ve gone.”

The little girls, cat and boy looked speculatively at each other.

“Well...it’s a strange boxy car car,” Amelie Sorensen scrutinised the Landrover with narrowed blue eyes, the dots of parental and adult advice linking up in her young mind into a coherent whole, “We should scream and run away, like Grampa told us to.”

“Hey, wait a sec,” I interrupted as I caught onto what the girls were thinking, but the girls had already made up their minds and as future experience would reinforce, a girl with a thought is a dangerous thing to be around, “I don’t think - ”

“My Mom’s next door, so she’s a mother we all know,” Bethany offered brightly at her friends whom had digested the wisdom of what the responsible adult had told them to do.

“Sure,” Monica Aoife O’Reilly nodded with pursed lips, then sucked in a breath as she proceeded to throw her hands up in the air as if waving for attention, and scream, “Kiyaaaaaah!”

“Kiyaaaaaah!,” the galvanised group of little girls spontaneously emulated the brown haired little girl running off in a weird kind of mob think, to find Bethany’s mother.

“What – what just happened?,” a confused Grampa asked Fluffy and I, who’d stood our ground and were looking at the mob of happily squealing girls with hands waving and flailing as they bolted next door.

Fluffy and I paused – there were some things about the thought processes of four year olds which didn’t really make a whole lot of sense to us either.

“It’s a four year old thing,” I replied gravely, stifling the urge to mindlessly run off with the female herd too, “It’s not meant to make sense.”

Well, it was probably a good idea that a bemused Mrs Stewart was dragged into joining us ferrying the girls home, because she cleared up the whole misunderstanding that it wasn’t ‘Getting into Strange car’, but ‘Strangers telling you to get into their car’ that was the problem the adults were concerned about.

Kirsten’s presence also helped calm down everyone’s parents when their daughter got out of the ‘Strange Car’ driven by Grampa who they didn’t know, when their child arrived home and jumped out of the Landrover banged and bruised up. Mrs Stewart ran interference explaining the girls had gotten bruised playing dodgeball before parental rebound could get out of hand, and Bethany along with everyone else had chimed up to vouch for the version of the story Bethany’s mother had assumed, rather than the truth that we were training to be Witches.

The calmed the parental units backed down and they thanked Grampa for driving their daughter back home rather than going off on a child abuse rant about the harm their child had suffered, as Grampa, I and Fluffy had been half expecting as the grownups devolved to small talk and neighbourhood gossip finding out about each other before we departed for the next destination.

From what Fluffy and I discretely overheard while keeping our new girl friend occupied, there was some concern on the part of the parental units, about just how far their daughters had travelled to get to their play date after the ‘responsible’ adults discovered where their child had ended up. 

Rather than clamping down on their four year old’s roaming like my cat and I’d been expecting, the parental gossip actually led to a few serious discussions with Grampa and Bethany’s Mom about the wisdom of buying a pushbike or child’s scooter to make things easier on little feet, the next time their girls wandered off on a play date...well, it was the 70s, attitudes were a little different.

* * *

Gregory Stewart manfully ignored her daughter’s sock slug studying him with round ping pong ball eyeballs at the end of its eye stalks at the table over a dinner of steak, chips and vegetables...considering the sock slug hadn’t even possessed any eyestalks when his wife’s amusingly laughable sewing skills first sewn it together, as Kirsten had intended her handiwork to resemble the Parramatta football club’s blue and yellow eel mascot before her daughter had happily declared the plushy to be a slug, the mobile eye stalks scrutinising him was very much out of place.

The problem was, Gregory’s wife Kirsten whom was seated at the dinner table and chatting about Bethany’s new friends and how she’d acquired the plethora of scrapes and bruises, appeared to be totally oblivious to the ‘thing’ which her daughter had taken to possessively lugging around everywhere.

Bethany also studied her father dubiously from the corner of her eyes – the disconcerting feeling that Gregory could actually See Groo the Slug’s True Form, despite her confirmed knowledge that grownups couldn’t see her Familiar for what it was as she discretely slipped the hungry slug the despised vegetables on her plate.

Gregory found himself locking eyes with his suddenly alarmed daughter, and the supernaturally wiggling blue and yellow patched furred slug in her arms in a weird PTSD flashback when he’d demobbed from the SASR and got back into civilian life.

The visual aberration which Gregory presumed represented the suppressed vestiges of his time running around in the jungle that was nesting in his daughter’s arms, suddenly went still at the scrutiny as its large round eyeballs narrowed suspiciously at being stared at.

An exasperated smiling Kirsten poked Gregory at the sudden visual standoff between her husband and daughter, “Are you listening to me?”

“Yes Dear,” Gregory replied on reflex, hard won reflexes earned in combat on the battlefields of Vietnam gave Gregory’s thoughts a swift kick as his thoughts scrabbled for the last thing he remembered his wife saying, as the former SASR man tore his gaze away from the eldritch ‘thing’ in his innocent daughter’s embrace to focus on a frowning Kirsten, whose thin lipped smile proclaimed she wasn’t convinced her husband was paying sufficient attention, “You were saying about buying Bethany a pushbike?”

“Oh,” Kirsten nodded as she speared a helpless slice of tomato on her fork, “You were listening after all.”

What had Kirsten been saying? Gregory wondered as he strategically occupied his mouth with a chunk of steak, before going for broke, “I don’t see a problem.”

Kirsten blinked slowly at her husband with a critical snort at the reply, “Isn’t she a little young?”

“Kids have to grow up sometime, having a bike will do Bethany good,” Gregory assured, having presumed that Kirsten’s concern was an overly maternal reaction to getting a bicycle for their daughter – the household budget was firmly in the black and he could afford the luxury, “I was riding around on my brother’s old hand me down pushbike when I was Bethany’s age. I don’t see a problem.”

“You’re the best, Daddy!,” Bethany gushed and sat up straighter, smiling with shining big green eyes as she hugged Groo the Slug to her chest, “I can go visit my friends on my own!”

“Hmmm,” Kirsten said with a half lidded green eyed look at her husband, in that way the wife gives which says ‘You Idiot’ without a word having to be spoken.

Gregory sucked in his lips a moment as he was put on the spot, understanding that his inattention had shifted responsibility for restraining their daughter’s aspirations from a joint parental decision to his alone as a bad guy, “Uh, only if you have someone with you.”

“Okay, I’ll take Groo with me, Daddy!,” Bethany squeaked, the Slug in her arms bobbing its eyestalks in agreement – which Gregory imagined was something unresolved in his subconscious surfacing as a visual anomaly he’d devoted a great deal of effort to ignoring over the years since settling back into a normal civilian life...he’d paid good money to the head shrinks to ‘adjust’ his world view back to what people generally considered normal.

“A real person,” an unperturbed Kirsten corrected her daughter’s enthusiasm, chin resting in the cup of her hand smiled thinly, not shifting her half lidded gaze from her husband’s squirming at the prospect of disappointing his little girl – a area which she knew her doting husband was a pushover.

“Okay Mommy, I’ll ask Fluffy and Sammy next door to come with me when we go out to play,” Bethany nodded seriously remembering that adults couldn’t See Groo as a real person with bouncing four year old excitement at getting permission allowing her to go out on her own, “Thank you, Daddy! I love you sooo much!”

“Yeeeaah,” Gregory said reluctantly in the knowledge his fate was sealed, though his thoughts honed by the crucible of combat was already devising alternative strategies to restrict his enthusiastic daughter’s roaming, without coming off as a hated parental figure and ‘Bad Guy’ in his daughters eyes – amongst which was a hasty talk with old man Benjamin next door after dinner, to play along and keep his grandson grounded at home, “I love you too.”

Groo the Slug snorted as it used a prehensile tentacle to pick up a chip on Bethany’s plate, which it tossed into its maw while staring at Gregory at the end of its eye stalks.

“Ah – that reminds me Kirsten,” Gregory shuddered and found himself saying, “I think I should check in with the head shrin – I mean psychiatrist. I might be having a few residual flashbacks.”

“I’m happy you realise you need your head felt, Greg,” Kirsten agreed cryptically, her even tone made the words sting in a way that implied Gregory had more problems than he thought.

* * *


	27. Consorting with Demons, isn't as bad as religion makes it out to be

...Australia...Earth...1974...

“No no no, you have to change the teeth too,” Benjamin Llewellyn Sung patiently admonished as he coached his shape shifting serpentine Familiar in the privacy of his bedroom, shaking his head ruefully as he rubbed his mouth at what he’d thinking concerning the evening’s entertainment prospects, “This is Such a Bad Idea.”

“Hssss,” Moire closed her mouth filled with sharp carnivorous row of tiny curved scimitar teeth evolved by nature to grab onto and hold prey, her slender forked reptilian tongue hissed softly through soft feminine human lips as slit reptilian amber eyes studied Benjamin through the sultry face of Jane Seymour.

A portrait of the movie actress who’d recently starred as the Bond Girl in the ‘Live and Let Die’ movie released the previous year in 1973, had been used as a starting point for the shape shifter to emulate. Moire’s head, arms and upper torso had expanded to the proper female human proportion with Benjamin’s prodding. 

“This needs work. A lot more work,” Benjamin sighed as his Familiar comfortingly coiled around him. He lay back against her scaled side and concentrated, snorting softly with a contented nod as Moire’s slit amber serpent eyes became more round and human – he kept at building his image of what he wanted Moire to look like, “Keep at it, dear – you’re doing fine.”

The problem was that unlike the original Moire of whom Benjamin had a great deal of fond youthful memories of that the dragon entity had little problems digesting for the wealth of reference points, all Benjamin had to go on about Jane Seymour were a few still pictures in a magazine, and the rather scant memories of what he’d seen of the actress in the cinema.

There just wasn’t that final sense of ‘familiarity’, or an emotional investment in a solid mental image of a fully formed person in Benjamin’s mind, which the supernatural dragon entity could get a good fix on – in Benjamin’s mind, Moire was a dragon, not a human...and it showed, as from waist down Moire retained her usual golden serpentine profile, if enlarged to accommodate her human sized upper torso...Benjamin had to ‘imagine’ all the missing bits and pieces for Moire to base her shape shifting on.

“You know, Dear,” Benjamin mused thoughtfully with hand pausing on his lips, as Moire’s shifted her larger bulk on the bed to accommodate Benjamin whom sat with her back against her snakelike coils, “You could put Ray Harryhausen out of business if you get into the Movies.”

“Hssss,” Moire’s tongue flickered out as she sinuously lowered her upper torso to the bed and propped up her currently human chin with her hands, resuming studying the picture of Jane Seymour with an amused hiss.

“I wonder, if this is how those ancient myths and legends of strange fantastic creatures began,” Benjamin wondered aloud as he brushed his fingertips along the fine golden scales of the currently hybrid woman dragon’s side, “A nameless lonely man somewhere, trying to imagine a life with someone in it...and maybe, desperate enough to settle for anything.”

“Hssss,” Moire patted Benjamin’s thigh comfortingly, and Benjamin’s concentration on his mental image wavered that the dragon lady’s amber pupils dilated, then elongated and became reptilian once more.

“On the other hand, you’re a much better woman and person than my last wife. You understand me, much better than she ever did,” assured Benjamin and sighed at the wasted decades of Hell on Earth, Moire hissed and flicked a forked tongued kiss across Benjamin’s cheek which made him smile as he ran his fingers through the hybrids silky emulated dark brown hair, where his hand bumped into the horns hidden underneath that dark brown head of hair, reminding him that the purring entity beneath the skin deep beautiful female visage wasn’t a human at all, “And isn’t that an irony.”

Moire fed as she nuzzled under Benjamin’s hand – the emotions and alien thoughts passing through the empathic bond to her was a subtle vintage, filled with new and odd stimulating alien nuances.

Just then the door bell rang, startling Benjamin who froze and stared in the direction of the front door a long moment, wondering who it might be at this time of night. Fine golden scales sprang up on Moire’s soft smooth ‘human’ skin as the fangs sprang out, and she hissed in annoyance at the interruption through a mouth full of carnivorous teeth which gaped inhumanly wide in a threatening warning display in the direction of the intrusion while she was feeding.

“Ugh, I guess I better go see who it is,” Benjamin said as he forcefully pushed away Moire, whom had coiled around him defensively, “Good girl – stay here and finish changing, I’ll be right back.”

“Hssss,” Moire’s semi-human hybrid facial features shifted towards the monstrous behind Benjamin’s back as the elderly man shifted the muscular bulk of her coiled body aside with a grunt – not that Benjamin could have escape Moire’s python-like grip if she really wanted him to stay put, and ‘escaped’ the bedroom lair of the irritated monster.

* * *

...luminous eyes observed the house under the cover of darkness, numerous crouching furred bodies cautiously moved around in the shadows with alert triangular ears pricked upright, and sensitive noses twitching for any telltale strange out of place smells which might indicate a danger to their small owners.

The urban environment was quite dangerous enough and filled with things which killed the unwary, frightening things of metal which stank of fumes and roared, which could turn a living breathing thing into a flattened disc of bloodied fur and cooling meat bereft of life if one weren’t careful. Fortunately, the roaring metal monsters usually stayed on the lanes of black dirt, and at night the stinking monsters slept like the dead. 

But the designated watchers whom were not required to stay within the abode of a Two Leg in the hour of darkness, kept themselves at a safe distance from the house. The Hive of the Femdom sensed something very much out of place about the place from which their Great Treasure of Interest Smells had been salvaged. 

There was something about the house and its grounds, which their primitive instinct warned against approaching any closer – a predatory sensation which made fur stand on end, a feeling of a big hungry devouring thing which gnawed on the sensed which the two legs were oblivious to, as they seemed to be oblivious to so many things.

And then in the cover of the darkness of night, the Hive saw It...saw Them.

The big predatory many legged grey furred thing which resembled the web spinners, which scuttled unnaturally on its eight legs with gruesomely large fangs bared in a way which spoke of a dangerous predator...and the big lumbering squat thing that accompanied it, which looked like a bizarrely deformed short pawed bulky brown dog, but walked upright like a Two Legs...they both smelled wrong, so wrong...

“Snarf?”

“Squee!”

The Night was Filled with Horrors.

The Hive of the Femdom watched the unnatural eldritch things go about their business, and saw with silent horror that where the two unnatural things went, the tiny scuttling carapace ones which crawled and flew that were prevalent everywhere, instantly turned into puffs of dispersing dust upon trespass upon the house and the fenced off grounds...the multitude of instant tiny deaths screamed silently of unfathomed terrors for the unwary whom dared trespass.

The Watchers paused as the Two Legs known as Beef Jerky, left its territory and approached...The House, and all its now obvious and implied dangers to which the helpless and oblivious Two Legs were all but blind to.

A quick decision was made in one of those empathic animal to human moments which crossed species barriers, in the face of mutual danger – a member of the watching Hive quickly sprang out in the path of Beef Jerky, and hissed a warning... 

* * *

Gregory Stewart involuntarily uttered a strangled squeal out as he jumped when a black cat scooted out of the night and across his path, pausing to glare at him with a hiss and arched back, before the disturbed animal leapt away and under a parked car on whatever business cats got up to at night. 

The former veteran of the Vietnam war looked around the dark to see whether anyone had seen him momentarily lose his usual unfazed composure in the face of adversity, taking a moment to clear his throat as a warning to whatever else was lurking out in the dark mught jump out at him, and straightened himself before continuing to the Sung’s place without dwelling on the superstitious nonsense of a black cat crossing his path being an omen of ill tidings.

Gregory mused that he really should stop leaving out food for the neighbourhood strays – his daughter had expressed an interest in the ‘homeless kitties’, and was an avid cat watcher when they cautiously crept in to feed when the shy creatures thought they weren’t being watched – lately, they strays were bold enough to continue eating even when Bethany was sitting nearby pretending not to watch them...well, it didn’t cost him anything significant, and his daughter was happy watching the cats come to eat.

Gregory opened the Sung’s front gate and as he closed it behind him, he saw numerous shining eyes reflecting the streetlight watching him in one of those uncanny moments which would have immediately set him on guard were he back in the jungles of Vietnam...but this was Australia, and those kinds of hair trigger combat instincts preceded dementia, and a spiral down into insanity. What happened in the jungle, should stay in the jungle – modern life had no place for that kind of thing.

Gregory pressed the doorbell on the Sung’s front door, and waited in the evening Sydney chill as he glanced back into the brightly lit night of the urban landscape at the unusual number of cats out there in the dark he now knew were watching him in hiding, an odd thought ran through his mind.

“This would make for an interesting Rod Serling episode,” Gregory snorted to himself with derogatory amusement as the Sung’s front door finally opened.

“Oh, it’s you Greg – what are you doing here this time of night?,” Benjamin looked up at his tall neighbour, “It’s not something about your daughter Bethany, is it?”

“Actually, it is – if you’ve got a moment,” Gregory replied agreeably, “I’m not disturbing anything important, am I?”

Benjamin Sung glanced over his shoulder a moment, then his facial features smoothed by the time he turned back to his neighbour, “Not at all, come in out of the cold. Thanks for the fifty bucks the other night, by the way.”

“You’re welcome,” Gregory replied with a smile at the invitation, as his neighbour stood aside to let him inside his house.

And then Gregory Stewart, a former lieutenant of the Australian Army’s Special Air Service Regiment and veteran of the Vietnam War, a loving husband to a wife blind to Reality as so many modern inhabitants of Western civilisation are, and an upstanding father of a young daughter whose normality was rapidly being eroded by eldritch entities whom were ancient when mankind was young, put aside his concerns about the soundness of his own mind which he strongly suspected was relapsing into post combat PTSD when he demobbed back into civilian life, stepped across the threshold of sanity as normal people understood it...and into the Twilight Zone...

* * *


	28. Sanity is Overrated - it really depends on your perspective...

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Gregory Stewart put his momentary encounter with the hissing black cat on the pavement out of mind as his neighbour invited him into his abode, the traditional ill omen associated with such an inauspicious creature crossing one’s path, being dismissed for a rather more mature rationale that he’d probably disturbed the feral stray while it had been out foraging in the night.

There was an odd tickly sensation as if he’d walked through a cobweb the moment he stepped across the threshold of the Sung’s house, and paused to examine the bright vintage red and green floral wallpaper and darker floral themed carpet which incongruously brought to Greg’s mind the odd thought it would probably do well as camouflage pattern if one could get over the male cringe, though the decor did admittedly fit right in with the ornate well maintained decorative plasterwork of the Federation era house.

It occurred to Greg as he looked around while the somewhat reclusive elderly Benjamin closed the door, that it was a little disturbing how you can live right next to someone as a neighbour for half a decade, and know next to nothing about them save for their name, nationality and appearance. Life and its problems had gotten in the way, and there’d never been an incentive to look or enquire up until very recently, when his dependent daughter had suddenly started growing up and looking over the fence.

That was the unfortunate reality of modern life – there wasn’t a necessity to rely on one’s neighbours when times got bad, which could mean the difference between life or death as it was in the old days when reputation, integrity and the honour of one’s name directly translated into trust, and meant success or failure in life.

“I think this is the first time you’ve been inside my house,” Benjamin smiled with a kind of pride, noting his neighbour’s scrutiny. Sometime during the previous night, the house had undergone a rejuvenating effect where the faded wallpaper and age worn plasterwork had repaired itself as new through some arcane means, which Benjamin gathered had something to do with Moire taking up residence and giving ‘Life’ to the structure he called home, “It’s been, what, six years since you moved in next door?”

“Five. Five years. We bought the house in 68 after I came back from my tour in Vietnam, but I didn’t move in with Kirsten until I de-mobbed from the army in 69,” Gregory replied, nodding as he followed his neighbour through the lounge room with a fireplace which looked unused, and an interesting display of a rock collection in display cases amongst a small library which he noted the Encyclopaedia Britannica, to the dining room beyond that overlooked the backyard, “Bethany was born a few months later in 1970.”

“Ah, yes. She’s the same age as my grandson, Sammy – possibly the one of two things my dense son did right in his life other than marrying his wife,” Benjamin nodded as he studied the bottles in the drink cabinet which he’d collected in better times, “Please take a seat, I never did get around to welcoming you. Would you like something to drink? Whisky? Brandy or a Cognac? No beer, I’m afraid. I seldom have the opportunity to enjoy a drink myself without company, and it’ll take a while to put the kettle on the boil for some tea since I wasn’t expecting company.”

“I wouldn’t mind a whisky, thanks,” Gregory replied politely at the offer with the implied understanding that refusing hospitality constituted an insult to Asian customs and sensibilities, sitting down at the solid hardwood dinner table whose highly polished mirror surface reflected him like a black mirror as Benjamin carried out his social ritual. There was a bowl of peanuts, walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds along with a nutcracker on the table which Gregory helped himself to as Benjamin got the drinks, “Kirsten has been talking about getting a microwave oven, though I’m still of mixed feelings about something that expensive when a normal oven would do.”

Microwave ovens were still very much a luxury item as of 1974, costing around a eight hundred to a thousand Australian dollars for a ‘cheap’ model which considering the average Australian wage was about 140 dollars, was quite a significant outlay. The effusive ‘gift’ of $50, which Gregory had shoved into Benjamin’s hands to babysit his daughter for an evening, had been exceedingly generous considering the average pay packet.

“I see, my son’s restaurant has one and it’s useful, though the food doesn’t taste quite the same after a nuking. Here we go, Johnnie Walker it is, I’ve been looking for a good excuse to open that bottle,” Benjamin nodded, selecting the bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label and retrieved two shot glasses, then sat down at the dining table and made a show of cracking the bottle’s seal as he uncorked and poured Gregory and himself a healthy dose, “It’s a bit late for a neighbourly welcome, but cheers and good health.”

“Thank you, cheers,” Gregory mentally adjusted his impression of his neighbour’s supposed destitution. The new knowledge that Benjamin’s son ran a restaurant and could afford a microwave, in addition to the good upkeep of the house, indicated that the man was not as poor as first assumed.

Both men took a moment to savour the burn of 12 year old blended Scotch Whisky, which had accumulated quite a few more years in Benjamin’s bar.

In the silence, Gregory noted an odd rhythmic noisewhich reminded him of his mother’s knitting needles...clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick....clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick...

“Phew – that’s a fine drink,” Benjamin blew his breath out then sucked his lips in a moment at the unaccustomed alcohol and taste, examining the light brown fluid in the shot glass with the kind of appreciation of experiencing a pleasure long denied, “So, Greg – I take you’re here to discuss the rough play our children experienced today?”

...clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick....clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick...

“Ah, no, that’s fine. No pain, no gain, you can’t protect kid from life, and Bethany seemed mighty proud of those bruises she showed me before going to bed. It’s just a badge of growing up, nobody ever matures without a little hurt,” Gregory deflected Benjamin’s concerns as he discretely looked around at where the noise might be coming from, “Rather, I’m more concerned with her potentially wandering off on her own somewhere, like her new friends my wife told me about.”

“Yes, I met their parents today when I drove the kids back home, and they seemed pretty surprised how far their children went when Kirsten and I told them where they ended up,” Benjamin acknowledged the change in topic with a certain relief, with a perplexed shake of his head and an amused snort, “It’s difficult to imagine that a group of enterprising four year old little girls could walk that far on their own...kids grow up so fast, but I suppose it’s better they’re out and about playing with each other than spending time cooped up indoors alone.”

...clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick....clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick...

“Kirsten seems to believe that getting Bethany’s old enough to start exploring the neighbourhood on her own, and talked me into getting a pushbike for her,” Gregory mused on the dinnertime discussion he had with his wife, “As a concerned father of a four year old child, I’m not quite ready to let her roam loose without adult supervision. Aren’t you a little worried about what your grandson gets up to when he’s left to his own devices?”

“Trust me, you have no idea how much it terrifies me what else might follow him home,” Benjamin admitted with feeling, then cleared his throat as he refilled the glasses with a depreciating snort, “Things have been a little peculiar lately, though I’m hardly complaining about being jarred out of my routine with new experiences.”

...clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick....clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick...

Greg found his thoughts lingering on that odd statement, considering the increasingly disturbing PTSD induced visual aberrations that his daughter’s stuffed toy may have been possessed by...something. Of course, the delusion wasn’t there – Kirsten obviously couldn’t see the plush slug like creature with mobile eyestalks in his daughter’s arms, and Greg knew from his experience and expensive post war psychiatric therapy, that if he just ignored the weirdness hard enough and pretend it wasn’t real, it would go away on its own.

Seeing things that weren’t there...that way lay insanity.

...clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick....clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick...

Or hearing them, for that matter.

“Um, do you hear a clicking noise?,” despite his struggle with his own mind, Gregory found himself asking his neighbour, “Perhaps you left something on in the kitchen?”

Benjamin raised an eyebrow with a pause, then looked over his shoulder back into the living room and fireplace, before turning back to Gregory with a perplexed look that something new and potentially monstrous had intruded upon the sanctity of his house – which Gregory erroneously interpreted as WTF are you going on about, “You can hear...something?”

...clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick....clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick...

“Perhaps...it’s just my imagination,” Gregory conceded hastily, as it seemed like Benjamin wasn’t hearing anything out of the ordinary, “I’m hearing a clicking noise.”

...clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick....clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick...

“Who’s there?,” Benjamin demanded over his shoulder with parental authority, “Is that you, Sammy? Fluffy??”

“Squee!,” there was a thump of something sizeable landing on ground and the giant grey furred spider poked its head out of the fireplace, then sheepishly scuttled out into plain sight in the middle of the living room having been called out onto the carpet, with the orange cat hair sweater it had been knitting from combing Fluffy the Cat.

“UhuHeeHUhuuu!,” Gregory spluttered a cough as he choked on his tongue.

Benjamin felt a spike of alarm, mixed with relief that it was just Squee the Spider, and not some new potentially life threatening demonic Squishy entity whom had arbitrarily made itself at home, and then turned back to Gregory whom was undergoing a coughing fit.

“Sorry about that, I thought it might’ve been my grandson or the family cat playing tricks,” Benjamin said as if the giant furred spider in the living room was a perfectly normal occurrence...or like he couldn’t see the spider showing off the orange sweater, “Can you still hear the noise?”

“Nnnnngh,” Gregory shook his head firmly with a tight grin, forcing himself to pretend the blatant visual aberration wasn’t there...problem was, it wasn’t working – the giant spider was still there.

“Oh, I guess it’s an old house – all sorts of odd noises when it warms up or cools down,” Benjamin explained calmly without acknowledging the spider’s presence, confident that like Kirsten whom was blind to their presence, Gregory probably couldn’t see Squishies either, “Where were we? You were saying about Bethany...”

Squee scuttled up onto a chair, exchanged looks with Gregory and resumed knitting.

...clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick....clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick...

Gregory tossed back the contents of the glass, and held out for a refill with trembling hand as he forced himself not to look at the multi-eyed many leg monstrosity whom had taken a place at the dining table, which his weak and malleable psych had evidently conjured up from the depths of his damaged subconscious.

The Vietnam War veteran knew that if he looked at the monster, the monster would look right back at him...and there lay insanity and damnation.

“I’m sorry, I must have greyed out a little,” Gregory huffed a few breaths and blew his breath out after downing the whisky Benjamin had refilled, shaking his head as he explained apologetically, “War flashback, sometimes it catches me at the oddest times.”

“Oh, that’s quite understandable. Another?,” Benjamin asked as he held the bottle up.

“Yes please,” Gregory replied meekly, holding the glass out, “Sorry, sometimes I see things – it started happening during my tour in Vietnam. Odd flashes of things which shouldn’t be there – it saved my life once or twice out in the field, combat trauma, I think you call it.”

There was a grinding noise as a slab of the living room floor lifted up, and beady eyes set in a squat brown furred head peered at the trio at the dining table as it found the spider it had been looking for, “Snarf!”

“Squee!,” the giant spider replied, curling a grey furred leg at the wombat to come join them at the dining table...the amount of emotional distress and existential conflict coming off Gregory Stewart, was quite a tasty treat.

The ‘understanding’ compassionate smile on Benjamin’s face didn’t so much as twitch as the squat brown wombat climbed out the hole behind him, and the slab lowered back behind it to seal flush against the carpet floor like it had never existed. The rotund eldritch creature then trundled up on its hind paws and hauled itself onto a chair besides its many eyed friend whom resumed knitting, where it rubbed its stubby forepaws and held it towards a vacantly staring into infinity distressed Gregory like it was warming itself at a fire – before reaching for the bowl of nuts on the table which Gregory pushed towards it on reflex.

“Gack,” a horrified Gregory said, upon realising he’d acknowledged his psychosis.

...clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick....clickclickclickclick...clickclickclick...

“Interesting,” Benjamin refilled the glass again and studied the visibly and psychologically traumatised man losing his grip as he manfully ignored the two creatures at the table, whom Gregory obviously could see and was trying very hard not to. Benjamin mused that maybe common wisdom had it all backwards – madness and insanity wasn’t a loss of touch with reality, but an inability to ignore it anymore...and the stronger the emotional trauma, the more Squishies turned up to feed off the distress that people could no longer ignore the ‘aberrant delusions’ jerking their chain for a feed any longer, “I guess there really is a plausible explanation to those bizarre political and religious realities which confound rational sense, after all.”

Gregory’s mind was rapidly undergoing a breakdown of years of reinforced brainwashing known to human mental health specialists as ‘psychological therapy’, which allowed him to continue deny things which should be there and perceive the world a certain way which the bulk of western civilisation called ‘normal’.

On the verge of a catastrophic breakdown, Gregory was more than willing to seize any straw which allowed him to continue denying the things he’d had his eyes ripped open to during his tour of duty in Vietnam...so when he saw a woman peek around the corner of the corridor of the entrance, he seized it.

“Oh – I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise you had female company,” Gregory’s mouth pounced on the socially acceptable opportunity to escape the madhouse before his sense of ‘reality’ crumbled in the face of the mounting number of aberrations proclaiming he was going insane. He jumped up on his feet and began rushing to the front door past Benjamin, only...to realise he’d made a bad mistake, “Oh my God.”

“Hssss,” Moire’s forked tongue flickered out of her soft feminine lips as she slithered out to find out what had been keeping dinner – ahem, Benjamin. From the hips up, she looked like that James Bond girl, Jane Seymour...from the hips down, she was serpent.

“Meep,” Gregory made a strangled noise and began hyperventilating as Moire reared up out into the open in all her golden serpentine glory, blocking his escape...a wet stain spread on the front of his pants as his sense of reality warped and crumbled upon having acknowledged the half woman serpent monster which his brainwashing sessions with the psychologists had rigidly reinforced wasn’t there.

When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you...and Moire’s eyes looked warped from human to serpent as she blinked at the petrified man making strange whimpering noises curiously.

Crack!

“Snarf?,” the wombat looked around at the scrutiny after having cracked upon a walnut, before tossing the shelled nut into its mouth and munching with soft crunching noises.

“Greg,” seeing his neighbour about to turn into a complete psychological basket case as he stared up at Moire like a petrified rodent in front of a snake, Benjamin sighed and shook his head, “If you’re seeing a half woman serpent hissing at you, you’re not insane...her name is Moire.”

“Hnnngh?,” a trembling wild eyed Gregory snapped his head around Benjamin, whom had stood up and was making non-threatening placating gestures with his hands.

“The wombat at the table cracking walnuts is Snarf, and the big grey spider knitting the orange sweater is Squee,” Benjamin stated evenly in a ‘I am perfectly sane and calm’ tone of voice, “So there’s nothing wrong with you other than the fact you’re a grown man standing in a puddle staining my goddamn carpet.”

Gregory looked down at the heated puddle pooling at his feet and soaking into the carpet, as did Moire, Squee and Snarf.

“I’m so sorry, I’ll replace the carpet!,” there was a long moment as Gregory’s mind teetered on the end of mental collapse as he jumped as if trying to levitate off the carpet and doing more damage, then slowly in his panic...edged back from the brink as a sense of emotional and psychological mortification overcame the driving force as he flapped around in panic from going completely mentally turtle denying reality, “Wait, you – you can see them too?”

“Yes, Greg. There’s this saying that the definition of insanity of doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results,” Benjamin smiled wryly as he walked up to Moire whom proceeded to coil around him protectively and wrap her arms cross his chest from behind as she continued staring uncannily down at a calming Gregory, whom was sucking in deep lungfuls of air like he’d just ran a Marathon, “Only the truly insane contrive to be blind to reality as it is, and people have been indoctrinating themselves that they aren’t over and over again for several thousand years. Isn’t that the sad truth about human civilisation?”

Gregory blinked as the incongruous words peculated through his neurons as he mentally scrabbled for sense in a changed worldview, then he blinked as it hit, “What?!?”

“Congratulations,” Benjamin scratched Moire under her currently human chin, “You’re now one of the handful of sane people on this planetary lunatic asylum.”

“Hssss,” Moire nodded agreeably.

“I...I need a drink,” Greg said faintly.

* * *


	29. Take the Red Pill, the Blue ones taste like crap

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Fluffy the Cat quietly examined his territory of the bedroom through slit narrowed eyes, insulated from the damp Sydney morning winter’s cold in the safe warm cosy embrace of his personal human shaped hot water bottle under the blankets. The temperature sensitive orange cat hadn’t been so cold that he sought refuge in Sammy’s pyjama top with the boy for that extra fur to skin warmth, but he was quite re-assured that the option was open if the weather turned for the worse.

Despite the boy’s spurious protest that he allowed the cat to sleep in the bed because his parents were too cheap to spring for a real stuffed toy, Fluffy knew deep in his feline heart who was the true Master and Servant in the relationship – Fluffy had marked the boy as his own long ago, and trained Sammy to be the perfect hot water bottle and meat shield in the event anything disturbed them while he was vulnerably asleep...and then, it was payback time for the dumb fuck who dared encroach on his human.

Sure, in the warmer humid months Fluffy preferred to sleep on the bedcovers on top of the compliant and submissive boy, but the simple fact that he could do so at will in the dominant position on top surveying his domains, said everything about the true nature of their relationship. 

There was also the other tell tales like the daily brushing ritual where Fluffy graciously allowed the boy to rid him of loose orange fur and dander he would otherwise have had to waste an inordinate amount of time licking himself, the regular food that would have had to be hunted down on his own time and effort – now rendered largely a past time to be indulged in at Fluffy’s leisure, and also the fact that he had to follow Sammy around to keep the boy out of mischief as the more responsible dominant party.

Yes, Fluffy was quite content with the way things were.

Sure, lately there had been disturbances to the natural established order, but Fluffy had adapted to the weirdness, establishing his dominance over the Squishies intruding on his territory and human, to land on his paws without issue. Squee the Spider and Snarf the Wombat may have looked big and scary, but the compliant bug and marsupial had acquiesced to allowing him to ride on their backs on demand without contesting being dominated, thereby relegating them to a non-issue in Fluffy’s mind.

No, the true disturbance to a carefree cat life without troublesome challenges to the status quo, was the undomesticated feral blonde little girl next door...actually, make that feral girls, they’d multiplied like fleas and there were seven of the troublesome chirpy bright eyed creatures whom were planning to visit again, to stake their claim on Sammy’s precious limited time attending the household cat’s needs.

The problem, Fluffy thought with an annoyed ear twitch, was that z mob of excited little girls were like...well, cats.

You couldn’t herd them to go in the direction you wanted unless they were interested enough to explore on their own, without them getting distracted and wandering off in all different directions that you burned a lot of time and effort chasing them down and getting them back on track.

Fluffy growled softly at the memory of the pelting he’d received at their little hands yesterday...sure payback had been fun and all, but getting hit with tennis balls himself? Not so much, and the feral girls seemed to take a rabid delight in chucking stuff at the cat and each other, without having a clue they were actually competing for Sammy’s attention.

Seriously, if those feral little girls had cat ears and tails, there’d have been fur flying by now thought as his tail lashed under the bedcovers, beating his bushy tail with annoyed feline agitation against the sleeping boy’s legs.

“Mmm, Fluffy,” murmured the waking boy and squeezed the orange cat, before untangling himself and throwing back the covers as yawned while stretching his arms, paused a moment as he blinked and rolled his eyes around in a disturbing way before looking cross eyed at something crawling across his peripheral vision, “Hey, that’s new.”

Fluffy rolled onto his tummy and watched curiously as Sammy reached up and tentatively groped at something in the edges of his vision, in a manner which brought to mind a magician pantomiming strange arcane gestures, before tentatively swiping experimentally with a thoughtful frown.

“What,” Fluffy asked as he watched the young human doing something deranged, “Are you doing?”

“I can sort of see weird blocky symbols on the edge of my sight, Fluffy,” Sammy replied as he frowned in concentration as he swiped again, then jerked back a moment with a startled look of surprise as his dilated eyes darted back and forth like a crazy person, “Whoa...a – um, window just opened up with a message on it.”

Fluffy contemplated whether or not to bite the boy and snap him out of whatever psychosis he seemed to be afflicted with at the moment, then his feline curiosity won out and he found himself sitting up and asking, “What does it say?”

Sammy paused for a long moment with a perplexed look, “Um...I don’t know?”

“Right. You’re seeing strange symbols in your head you can’t read,” a half lidded Fluffy said flatly, his orange bushy tail thumping softly against the bed which expressed both his curiosity and naturl feline scepticism, “Just when did you start seeing these things?”

“I...actually, I think they’ve been there for a while but I’ve just never taken any notice of them,” Sammy frowned after a short reflective pause, “It’s kind of like being aware of your tongue. You don’t really notice it until you do, and then it’s filling your mouth and you’re trying not to bite it.”

Fluffy frowned as an alien sensation filled his mouth now he was conscious of it after the boy had drawn attention to his tongue. The now preoccupied cat stuck his tongue out and licked around his sharp teeth and short feline muzzle, then made smacking noises as he moved his suddenly pervasive tongue around his mouth out of the way where he wouldn’t bite down on it or to a position where it wouldn’t feel awkward, “Thuck, why thung ish shtuck.”

“I wish I could understand what it saying...oh...a new window just popped up,” Sammy pursed his lips as he began reaching for something only he could see, then paused, “Hey, Fluffy – there’s two er, pills and I think I have to choose one. Would you choose the red pill or the blue pill if you were me?”

“Mwuh?,” a distracted Fluffy asked, his tongue hanging out of his mouth which he was poking with his orange tufted paw in, “Wed whil.”

“Um, what?”

“Wed - ,” Fluffy reeled his tongue back in and snapped his mouth shut, put on an intent look of concentration before firmly enunciating, “Rrrrred. Red. Red Ridinghood Rides the Rabid Roof – I mean Wolf – Rowr.”

“Fluffy, you’re sounding crazy,” Sammy observed impatiently, “Why red?”

“I’m trying to get my tongue back to normal with a tongue twister, and it worked,” Fluffy replied sagely as he stuck his tongue out and sucked it back in experimentally while dimly recalling memories of having been fed something blue a few days ago and...and what? Was that supposed to have been a blue jelly baby or a rock? Well, he still vaguely remembered it didn’t taste anything like a normal soft and gummy jelly baby should, “Trust me, pick the red pill – the blue ones taste like crap.”

“Um, okay,” Sammy reached out and picked the red pill, paused as his eyes dilated, then gasped, “Ughhh!”

“Wait – wait a sec, I just remembered I’m a cat and have problems seeing red properly!,” Fluffy hopped up as a round eyed Sammy began choking, the alarmed orange cat seized the boy by the neck and began shaking urgently as he recalled the boy’s pre-Awakening penchant for sticking strange things in his mouth, “Spit it out! Spit it out!”

The boy flopped onto his back and began flopping like a landed fish, his little feet drumming against the bed as Fluffy proceeded to leap onto Sammy’s stomach and jump up and down to forced whatever had been swallowed up, while rowling in a high pitched catty scream, “SPIT. IT. OUT!”

“Puh-HuHUH !,” Sammy coughed as he suddenly sat up and brushed aside the frantic cat, stared around the bedroom without actually seeing anything that was actually there in wonderment, “I – I understand.”

“What? WHAT?,” Fluffy seized Sammy’s pyjama top in his large paws as he stared nose to nose into the boy’s unnaturally dilated unseeing eyes, “SPEAK to Me! SAY SOMETHING!”

“The words – I understand...it says, Alteran Command Matrix 100%...Nanite deployment 100%, Genetic Conversion 100%, Alteran Archive Authority...0%?,” Sammy went silent as he skimmed down the list to relevant information, “Wait a sec – Alteran Adult Detected, 0%? Childproof Lockdown Engaged 100%?? What is this shit – WHY...oh...bullshit...what do you mean I have to be at least fifty fucking years old to access higher command functions? Oh, come off it...it’s a legal requirement?!?

“I wish I could see whatever this Matrix thing it is you’re seeing,” Fluffy calmed down as he glared at the boy, “You need someone responsible looking out for you before you find another pill.”

“Wait a sec – oh, here we are. Yes,” Sammy stabbed his index finger at thin air, and a small 3x3 inch holographic window suddenly projected out into in front of him with arcane green blocky symbols hovering in the air which wavered, then transformed into English. Sammy’s eyes undilated now he could focus on something further than his own eyeballs, as Fluffy moved beside Sammy pressed his whiskered cheek against boy’s and read down the mechanically scrolling list on the little floating screen. The curious cat was sufficiently annoying, that Sammy paused, then literally grabbed the edges of the holographic window and stretched them out as wide as his arms could reach for more comfortable viewing.

“Huh, whatever’s doing this must be advanced tech,” the Fluffy orange cat surmised after a long moment, contemplating the conveniently ‘Englished’ translation, “What does the greyed out and red titles mean?”

“Child proofed access and broken links to external databases, I think,” Sammy replied, trying to puzzle out what the some of the windowed and greyed and red earmarked out titles on the tabs actually meant, “How do you figure it’s advanced?”

“They’ve invented widescreen colour TV,” the cat replied, cocked his head a moment, “Oh, this is unusual.”

“What? Did you see something unusual?,” a concerned Sammy asked.

“I just realised I can see red now,” Fluffy pointed at his eyes, nodding at the screen at the large number of red scored links, “And this Matrix thing has a lot of broken red links...wait, there’s something interesting. Military Command Node – it’s not greyed out or red.”

Fluffy and Sammy looked at the tab, then Sammy reached out and ‘opened’ it with a poke of his index finger. Another large holographic window popped out and floated in the air as the boy and his pet cat looked at the new set of options.

“Military simulation. Survival Simulation. Historical Simulation. Strategic Simulation. Pilot Simulation. Navigation Simulation. Technical Sim...um, Fluffy...I think this is some kind of game,” Sammy said with hushed excitement, as he read down the rather lengthy list that as he got further down, had perquisites for more ‘advanced’ simulation options, some of which were red and presumably ‘broken’ options leading to external information...then a new window popped out, “Do you wish to start a new simulation – Yes, No? – Okay, Yes, of course. Do you wish to invite participants to join? Oh, yes – hey, look, Fluffy – you’re listed right here as ‘Fluffy the Cat’ with a cute orange cat face icon!”

“Suspicious. Very Suspicious,” Fluffy squinted dubiously with a sudden chill down his spine at ‘Fluffy the Cat’ with a stylised orange ‘Hello Kitty’ cat face icon appearing on the holographic screen without any input from him.

“Okay, you’re in my Party now,” Sammy poked the Fluffy icon, then, “Which game do we want to play? – Well, Duh, all of them – how would we know what’s fun until we played them? Start...wait, all we have to do to play is press the start button?”

“Wait, Sammy, I don’t think - ,” Fluffy moved to slap down the boy’s arm as Sammy moved to press the holographic ‘Start’ button.

It was just a little too late as the start icon disappeared and was replaced by ‘Simulations Running’, as both boy and cat suddenly stiffened, then slumped unconscious against each other...

* * *


	30. Save Point Reached - The 41st Millennium of the Alteran Great Exodus, Really Sucks

...Somewhere, in the Matrix...

It is the 41st Millennium since the Alteran branch split from the Ori species in the Great Exodus. For more than a Hundred Centuries, the Alteran Princeps Prima Oris has led the growing Fleet of Great City Cores of the Altera Humanitaes across the far flung Universe, as far as they could flee from their unsympathetic Ori kin.

The Princeps stands First amongst Equals whom captain the tens of thousands of great City Core mother ships, whose decision will determine whether the seeds of the Humanitaes, ‘The Cultue’, representing the Altera branch of the Oris humanoid species, thrives in where ever it eventually establishes a new Home and Order in a galaxy far far away...or withers and dies forgotten and unmourned in the darkness of fear and ignorance in the depths of space.

Yet even in this homeless state questing for a place to take root, the Princeps continues to push The Fleet ever further from its Origins. The original Altera have thrived and prospered in their Exile, their numbers grown through the tens of thousands of years that now vast fleets of advance starships accompany the once vulnerable City Cores, and whom battle precede the Great Exodus in ceaseless battles through the hostile Xeno Empires whom bar their way.

To be an Altera in such times is to be one amongst the billions fighting for the right to merely exist. It is to live as a cog in a seemingly eternal war machine which consumes Altera citizens and material in the most bloody and ruthless battles imaginable.

Forget the Power of Technology and Science, it’s been perverted in the name of survival and much has been forgotten in the name of expediency. Forget the Gentle Promise of Progress and Understanding, for the clone vats of the Alteran Militares are busy churning out indoctrinated clone troopers in the lost grim dark past where there is only war.

There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter for those unfortunates in the leading edges of The Fleet, and the cruel laughter of the Ori waiting for the broken Altera remnants to slink back home on bended knees begging for forgiveness.

These are the tales of two lost souls in those long forgotten times of suffering and trial...perhaps they did exist, or perhaps it is just a tale, an allegory for the billions who came before and are now but dust in the ages...

* * *

“AAAAAAAH!,” a tearfully terrified Sammy screamed as he ran as fast as his short legs could carry him, hopping over and ducking under the undergrowth barring his way with an agility born of terrified instinct.

“ROWWRRR!,” an equally terrified Fluffy squealed as he ran full tilt on all fours in front of Sammy through the undergrowth, sending back critical information through the tight beam encrypted link he shared with the young boy of the obstacles in his way.

“ROAAAAR!,” the three meter tall muscular armoured reptilian axe wielding monster whose parentage looked as if it had some werewolf in its ancestry, roared as it easily smashed aside the tree trunk in its way and drew back, then threw the giant axe at the fleeing elusive little fleeing boy.

SCHWING!

The slender red haired cat eared humanoid female figure clad in tight body hugging black toned leather leapt forth and deftly deflected the thrown spinning axe with her slender delicate looking rapier, that was crafted of an alloy made from the tough and near unbreakable material known as Mythryl. For a moment, the sharp faced cat eared woman held her pose as she stared down the reptilian monster as if daring it to continue its attack.

Then the moment passed.

“ROAAAR!,” the monster bellowed in defiance, reaching behind the bulk of its back and ripping loose an even more massive axe than the one it had thrown, as it jumped forth at the new foe and drawing back to smash the slender feminine figure flat through sheer overpowering strength which the thin slender blade of the rapier could never hope to stop.

The thing about rapiers, is that if you’re standing still and using it to block strikes like a long sword, then you’re using it completely wrong. The cat eared woman was not there to receive the blow from the massive axe, having leapt forth with slender blade extended and point leading as she metaphorically disappeared behind the large cup shaped hand guard.

There was a sound like a melon being punched with a hammer, and the woman deftly retracted the rapier as she spun and deftly landed on her toes – flicking off the red blood and film of gore staining the tip of the blade as the roaring armoured reptilian monster crashed in death spasms behind her, its left eye socket a gooey ruin as the tip of the rapier had penetrated through the weakness of its armoured skull to punch through bone and skewer the monster’s vulnerable brain.

The cat eared woman stood there a moment in a cool triumphant stance with rapier pointed to the ground while the reptilian creature continue to roar and die, before she fished out a cloth and wiped off the slender blade before sheathing it in the scabbard on the left side of her slender waist...sure it might have looked cool to have a sheath across her back, but there was an element of pragmatism involved which made carrying a sword that way kind of stupid and impractical.

“You two are going to die out here,” the cat eared woman stated unflatteringly as the two small frightened faces poked out of hiding in the bushes, “Do you have anything to say?”

“So Cool!,” an admiring Fluffy purred, “I think I just came.”

“No. I’m pretty sure you pissed yourself in terror back there when the meat cleaver wielding dinosaur tried to make us extinct,” Sammy corrected as he emerged from the bushes, with the annoyed fluffy orange cat shooting him a poisonous glare behind his back, “Um, Miri – we lost our equipment after we ejected when the pinnace went down. Where’s the rest of the recon team?”

Miri, the cat eared woman shook her head with a confident look of a veteran recon scout, not even hinting how deep in the shit they were in, “Scattered over a hundred or so kilometres, all along the path the pinnace went down after we got hit by the orbital weapon.”

Fluffy and Sammy exchanged looks as the scenario was very different than the one they’d been briefed on.

“What orbital weapon?,” Sammy asked with a decidedly upset frown at the unwelcome news they were marooned on a rock, without their accustomed creature comforts they'd gotten use to over the past year since waking up in their current situation, “This place is supposed to be stuck in the pre-space middle ages.”

“Huh, go figure,” Miri shrugged nonchalantly with a bemused wry smirk, “Looks like the preliminary scan carried out by Fleetcom was less than complete, as usual. Good thing we’ve been assigned to find out what’s going on down here before a City Core cruises through this system for resource extraction, hmm?”

“Oh joy,” Sammy bowed his head a moment at the alien woman’s observation about what they needed to do, “I knew the last year we spent marooned in basic training learning stuff, was too good to be true. We're gonna die, aren't we?”

“Oh, relax – I’ve been in worse situations,” Miri assured the hopeful cat and depressed boy confidently, as she gestured that they follow her, “You’ll be fine.”

“Really?,” a shiny eyed Fluffy asked with sudden hope their dire situation mightn't suck as much as it looked at first glance.

“Nope. I’m just saying that to make you feel good,” Miri smiled sardonically, shaking her head as she consulted the holographic map board on her wrist, “I’ve never been in a situation so screwed up where all I’ve got is a lousy prop rapier, and my ride home’s been shot down with no way to contact Fleetcom...so we better start walking that way where our pinnace’s crashed, and hopefully find something useful or meet up with the rest of my team who’s got more than I have when they get in range of our detector.”

[Save Point Reached – You have Survived Crash Landing and Met with Miri...Saved...]

“I hate this game,” Sammy said to Fluffy, whom nodded as the group trudged through the undergrowth after their sardonic Fearless Female Leader towards the next event save point.

* * *

Fluffy and I had arrived on the City Core mothership serial number ‘L337’, otherwise known as the ‘Lita’ by those whom lived aboard it and the defensive parasite squadrons whom protected the...well, considering the Lita was shaped like a giant snowflake under a glass and metal snow globe, fifty one and a bit kilometres across with its own zoo and theme park, I think it safe to say it was a pretty massive vessel.

Probably even more mind numbing, was the concept that the Humanitae had something even bigger cruising around out there called a Planetoid Core, which the Lita was supposed to dock with if it ever needed extensive structural repairs.

Anyway, my hungry cat and I got caught by the authorities of the Lita pretty fast after we went looking for something to eat...and weird as it sounded, we were both registered as cloned citizens in the auxiliaries, and summarily got tossed ‘back’ into the City Core’s educational system we both supposedly escaped from playing hooky.

For the record, we both took the opportunity to dive into the wealth of information to be had for the taking, in order to find out what the fuck was going on. The nice thing about Alteran education, is that you can have information directly injected into your head by the thing Fluffy and I nicknamed the ‘Skull Fucker’...sure it’s headache and puke inducing and your eyeballs feel like they’ve both been punched, but it was fast and as long as you spent time reviewing the knowledge to get it to imprint properly into your conscious knowledge, the information was readily available for access.

We also made some friends at school in the dorm we stayed at, soaking up the history and culture without suspecting a thing about the situation we were in, until we graduated from school after our intensive study soaked up a minimum amount of ‘basic’ knowledge which qualified us both for active participation in Fleet activities despite our young age.

It was then we caught onto our true situation when the message popped up;

[Save Point Reached – Fluffy and Sammy Are Educated in Basic Alteran Knowledge...Saved.]

We were stuck in a Game, and had been for over a year.

Everything felt so real, that it had come as a nasty shock to discover our friends were nothing more than convincing simulations. Even after grasping they weren’t real, neither Fluffy or I could tell any different as their simulated personalities were seamlessly convincing. WE both decided to err on the side of caution, and continued to treat everyone like they were real while we figured a way out of the simulation.

After a little moaning, bitching amd moping, Fluffy and I got our first posting as support crew on a shuttle – actually, it was classified as a eight man crew FTL capable ‘pinnace’ according to Humanitae naval classification. Our first mission turned out to be ferrying a recon team to take a closer look at a planet which had two sentient species comprised of cat or fox eared humanoids, and humanoid dinosaurs whom were stuck in an ongoing war with each other.

Now, two so distinctly different mammalian and reptilian species don’t spontaneously arise to sentience on the same planet like that without some shenanigans involved, so the Lita’s anthropologist and science types figured they’d been planted there and wanted a closer look than Fleetcom, whom had pretty much just skimmed past the region.

The recon team was appropriately disguised so they could blend in with the local foxy cat people, and after an introduction our pinnace got underway with the general idea that we’d drop off recon and wait around out of sight to pick them up when they finished their business on the planet.

The only wrinkle in what should have been a boring routine mission was;

[Save Point Reached – Your Pinnace has been shot by a mysterious alien weapon...Saved.]

Fluffy and I had actually trained for this kind of thing along with the rest of the other six nameless pinnace crew we’d been assigned to, whom we really hadn’t bothered to get to know well, because they were kind of generic and forgettable as simulated people compared to our friends we thought were real back at school.

The abandon ship alert went out and we both jumped in the same escape pod because we really didn’t feel like going through the drama of looking for each other in an alien world, which then ejected as soon as I locked down the hatch and automatically headed for the nearest planet.

We landed, cracked the pod open and took our first look at an alien environment – there was a survival kit in the pod along with a standard issue lasgun which I retrieved...shortly after, we ran into an opportunistic dinosaur person with an axe to grind, who’d come looking for treasure and decided our heads on a stick qualified.

Quite naturally, I shot it before the creature could bury the axe it carried in us...interesting thing about lasguns, they have really lousy penetration.

[Save Point Reached – You have pissed off a local, and it wants your heads on a stick...Saved.]

I had much better luck distracting the angry humanoid reptilian monster throwing the lasgun at it on overload before running away screaming. Shortly after, I ditched the survival kit in order to run faster when the pissed off dinosaur person began chasing us after having an improvised flashbang go off in its face, when Fluffy and I ran into Miri who’d landed in her escape pod nearby – unfortunately her pod had sunk in a swamp before she could retrieve anything useful aside from her own curvy self.

And here we are, after a needlessly cool dramatic rescue, and scratched one gruesomely killed local.

Yeah, this was so gamey and stank of a story some talentless hack writer wrote – but it felt disturbingly real to us, that neither Fluffy nor I really wanted to discover what happened if we managed to get ourselves killed.

I hate this Simulation so much...so does Fluffy.

* * *


	31. Save Point Reached - There's such a Thing, as Too much Game Immersion

...Somewhere in the Matrix...

The L337 City Core was actually on the extreme far side of the massive Alteran Exodus Fleet’s ongoing conflict with the rabidly hostile local galactic powers. The Lita was in what was considered a quiet zone on the Exodus Fleets’s course through the current galaxy, and the City Core’s home flotilla had become specialised in resource collection to supply the other combatant sections of the Exodus Fleet, whom had become heavily militarised over the decades of conflict.

The usual standard operational procedure of the Great Exodus making a pit stop at a galaxy while cruising towards the universe’s equivalent of the boonies, was for a given Planetoid Core to find a nice uninhabited compatible planet and spend a century as the cooped up population got out and stretched their legs a bit doing the things repressed male and female animals do when space and favourable conditions permit, collect resources to build new City Cores and escort fleets for the resultant growing population, swap genetic material with other areas of the Exodus so inbreeding didn’t happen, before moving on to the next galaxy.

That’s the way it had been for several tens of thousand years since leaving the home galaxy of Origin, and the Exodus had grown as it meandered towards a place to set down permanent roots far enough from the Ori, that they wouldn’t come looking under what rock the Alterans disappeared under. 

For some reason, the local warring powers of the current galaxy the now ‘Great’ Exodus had been passing through whom had been happily killing each other when the Alterans turned up, took offense to several thousand massive motherships and accompanying fleets of giant starships moving through territory often competing powers claimed was theirs.

To be completely sardonic about the historical context of the war, the current conflict began when the locals thought that blowing up Alteran resource collectors ‘intruding’ in contested claims was a good way to get the Exodus to move on. The problem for the Alterans was that without those resource collectors doing their job as quickly as possible, the Great Exodus had gotten big enough and the baggage train had been sufficiently slow moving, it no longer possessed the resources to just up and flee from confrontation to the next stopover galaxy on the seemingly endless journey.

So as the aggressive local powers attacked the Exodus and blowing up Alteran resource collecting infrastructure with great initial success due the early Alteran Gormless practice of running from conflict and aggression, the more resources the Exodus was forced to divert to the military and defensive flee in order to protect the resource collecting activities they needed, prevented the Great Exodus from accumulating the necessary supplies to migrate on to the next galaxy.

This dire need to accumulate the necessary resources resulted in the Altera staying put and fighting, which consumed even more resources...which caused the local powers to fight even more rabidly after their initial successes to ‘defend’ the territories they claimed the Alterans were squatting on, which diverted even more resources from the Exodus to the military for ‘defence’ which put more pressure to collect more resources and ad nauseum...

You see the general moronism of the historical situation, right?

The war didn’t make any rational sense, and like most wars throughout history everywhere where one side had an agenda incomprehensible to the other, it never had from the outset other than one side believing they had the right to try dominating the other and failing to pull it off. 

If only the rabidly hostile locals had just made their intentions known and allowed the Altera to gather the resources to leave, then the Exodus would not have ground to a halt and mired itself in a war that was changing the Alteran character for the worse...the increasingly militant Alterans as they were changing into now after the initial drubbing, were simply too technologically powerful and numerous for the locals to defeat in detail. 

After resorting to cloning to put live bodies on the frontlines as an equaliser to the more numerous locals whom believed they’d invested too much political credit in the fight trying to drive out the Exodus, there was no politically acceptable way for either side to simply roll over and admit defeat.

The war could only end, if one side or the other capitulated, or was annihilated – the idiocy of national honour was at stake.

Least you laugh at the implausible lemming like stupidity of the unlikely situation, there’s been many historical parallels in Earth’s recent past where similar idiocies have arisen, where an otherwise salvageable bad political situation was made so much worse after people got trigger happy.

Take Earth’s World War One for instance, though the Second World War and all the ensuing conflicts including the Vietnam conflict also follows the general template of heroic failure, attributed largely to one side believing they could make the other crack applying the blunt trauma instrument of military aggression only to belatedly discover the mallet they wielded wasn’t quite as big as they imagined, and ended up breaking themselves instead trying to win an elusive and undefined ‘decisive victory’ over the enemy at the cost of cannon fodder fed into the meat grinder of war.

The 41st Millennium of the Great Exodus, was therefore a time of brutal unending war as the formerly sedentary homebody character of the Alterans changed and adapted to the barge pole the aggressive culture of the locals attempted to force up them in a situation, where they couldn’t just run away from a confrontation as per historical precedent.

Even the most harmless soul can be trained into a mindless killfrenzy sociopath given enough time, patience and incentive – the US Marines have got it down to an artform. You also know the situation is screwed beyond comprehension, when both sides can still blindly and hypocritically claim after all this as justification...’What Did We Do To You?!?’...

* * *

“...well, put that way, I suppose you have a point about the clones serving in the Militares on the other side of the Exodus have gone collectively insane from the nonstop fighting,” Miri wrinkled her nose at the prognosis Fluffy and I had given her in what had started as a discussion about the ongoing war. It had devolved into something of a rant about the unqualified stupidity of the mess the Great Exodus was stuck in, and why ‘we’ couldn’t just leave well enough alone and run from the growing disaster like sane people, “Interesting expression, ‘Killfrenzy’, though you two really should see a mental health specialist for your unhealthy suspicion this is all a bizarre simulation.”

“If this was a simulation, how would you get out of it?,” I asked, “Hypothetically?”

“Well, hypothetically if you can find anything like that kind of rare Lostech, there should a log out button somewhere when you reach a point where you can make a save,” Miri said as she paused to study the forest around us that was filled with the noises of unseen alien wildlife, “Or you can just get killed, though I don’t recommend that.”

“Nyah,“ Fluffy shook his head, “If my paws hurt just walking, I’d rather not go through the pain of dying, and we never saw any logout button anywhere the last save point.”

“It could be hidden under an invisible access menu – hypothetically,” Miri shrugged with amusement, “What makes you think something like that would be in plain sight?”

Fluffy and I looked thoughtful at the suggestion, we hadn’t considered that – I mean, the Alterans had military VR combat simulations, and the ones we trained on had prominent logout icons in plain sight...but would a civilian type simulation computer game have something like that?

Well, as opposed to the military type sims Fluffy and I had trained on which had icons in plain sight reminding you that you didn’t really get killed when things went south, a Lostech civilian game would probably go for an immersive feel – less visible distractions in the field of view reminding you were in a game, more immersive for the illusion of realism because it’s more ‘fun’ that way...hmmm, I’m thinking too hard.

“What kind of crappy game has a little kid and a pet cat as the main protagonists in the military, anyway?,” I complained, shaking my head, “The storyline sucks.”

“I can’t think of anyone that crazy outside of the British Navy,” Fluffy agreed with me, shaking his head firmly, 

“Er, wut?,” I looked askance at Fluffy. 

“You know, the ship’s cat who kept the rats in check, and those little kid midshipman with the poofy threads they use to have in the age of sail?,” Fluffy wrinkled his nose and swished his tail, “It’s historical fact, this situation is at least historically plausible if completely deranged.”

“Come to think of it, that’s actually true,” I frowned, “I never really thought about how deranged that really was in practice.”

“We need to find you two more water, you’re obviously getting delirious from dehydration,” Miri observed gravely as she looked around at the forest for something to apply her simulated field craft on.

“Are we there yet?,” I asked upon being reminded we hadn’t drank anything substantial since we’d been shot down, as I looked up at the position of the local star. I was feeling footsore too, the Simulation was stupidly true to life in some areas.

“Take a break and get a navigation fix on our position,” Miri directed as she looked at the electronic map board on her wrist disguised as a primitive bangle, “I’ll tell you how close you are.”

It rapidly became evident to Fluffy and I, that the cross country trek up and down across broken forested landscape, that Miri was teaching us the basics of ‘Navigation’ and how to apply it. I mean, there’s a lot of basic knowledge which people know because they’ve been taught it in school, but don’t have a clue how to apply the theory in practice when it matters. 

For instance, on Earth the sun rises in the East and sets in the West – everyone who hasn’t been living under a rock since they were born knows this.

It’s common knowledge, something you can see with your own eyes if you just wait long enough, and even if you can’t be bothered to wait you can just plant a stick in the ground and making marks to determine which way the sun is moving. From there, if you know where the sun rises and sets, you know which way is north and south...and yet, the majority of people couldn’t tell you which way is east or west if their lives depended on it, even with the evidence beating down on their heads.

“I’ll go find a stick,” I said as Fluffy and I glanced at each other with a sigh – we did have a short ranged radio on us which could be used as a direction finder, and got to work figuring out our rough position using the primitive means we had at our disposal...it’s amazing what you can do with a few sticks and a brain with functional intelligence when motivated.

The concept of triangulation is well known, you could figure out distance to a given point if you have a known distance and two angles. All it takes is two lines in the dirt and apply basic maths, it isn’t even hard.

Heck, the Greeks figured out the Earth was not only round by about 240 BC, but how big it was within a margin of error just by having two sticks planted in the ground in two distant cities, and noting the angles they were at a given time of day so they had both a known angle and distance to base some high school level maths on...of course, the Christians turned up with their heads buried up their ass promoting the flat Earth theory the better part of a millennia, but eventually they pulled out and stopped smelling the shit too.

So Miri pretty much reviewed how to practically apply knowledge of ‘How to Navigate through an alien landscape’ which we had implanted in our heads from school, and coached us how to apply it in practice to figure out where we were as we made our way to the next event save point.

“Ouch, we’ve still got another ten kilometres in this terrain?,” I said, after doing a rough calculation from the measurements we collected. The orange cat had paced off twenty meters for a baseline and we estimated an angle to the next escape pod’s beacon from our rudimentary direction finders – it would have been more accurate if he went further, but we didn’t want anything lurking in the bushes to take advantage of an orange furred snack.

“Good, close enough,” Miri congratulated, as she located a suspicious looking spiky plant and took her knife out, “We’ll take a short break here for a lesson.”

“CREEEEEEE!,” the relieved cat and I sat down at our guide’s words, but jumped back up as the spiky plant uprooted itself and tried to run away after Miri stabbed it, “CREEEEeeeee – eeep.”

“Okay, I got us some water,” Miri declared, as she dragged the flopping plant back to us, “Survival lesson, how to extract the sap of an alien plant for water.” 

“ – eeep,” the mortally wounded dying alien plant which looked like a spiky green dick with tentacles, protested as it continue to flail and flop about.

“Oh. My Gawd,” an unnerved round eyed Fluffy said, “You’re fucking with us, right?”

“Now you know how I felt, when you left a dead mouse on my pillow,” I said to the gagging cat, then stuck my tongue out and doubled over with dry retching sounds as Miri knelt on the struggling plant and ruthlessly sliced it open with her knife – disgusting looking sappy guts and fluids gushed out as the plant gave one last ‘eep’ and went still, then she took out a cloth and proceeded to scoop some of the sloppy coils of gooey guts onto it.

“It's safe to drink,“ Miri said as she demonstrated by wringing a few drops of disgusting looking plant animal guts into her mouth, “There's plenty for the three of us.”

“Grossss!,” a repulsed Fluffy and I shook our heads negatively as the cat eared redhead held the wrapped up plant guts at us.

It was just wrong – plants aren’t meant to run around like that, and we'd just watch Miri kill it and literally rip its guts out right in front of us.

It's like still having any appetite for a hamburger, after watching a live cow getting slaughtered and being rendered into mince right in front of you. It sort of makes your reconsider how hungry you really are.

There are some things which can’t be described, only experienced...and then you just don’t want to talk about the horrible experience ever again...even if the plant gut juice did taste kind like sweetened lime.

[Save Point Reached - Sammy and Fluffy have acquired basic Navigation and Survival skills...Saved.]

This game sucks - it's too immersive.

* * *


	32. Save Point Reached - Game Break PG Rated Censorship

...Somewhere in the Matrix...

“...creeEE-EEep...CrEeEe-eEEp...creeee-EEEp...”

We heard the sounds of devastation, long before we actually saw it.

The shrill forlorn wailing cries of smouldering and injured creeps fleeing danger, having uprooted themselves from their decrepit hiding places as they screamed their distinctive cries. We saw the mobile vegetables – or were they fruits? – stumbled, flop and crawl about in a daze from the site beyond the rise where the escape pod had gone down, exposing themselves to the harsh light of day as a gleaming eyed Miri opportunistically stalked forth and ruthlessly harvested the clumsy shrieking plants for their juices with her knife, horrifically wringing the guts of her screaming victims into a makeshift gourd which had once been a living breathing creep...

The horror, the horror...okay, no, not really – the juice from the spiky prickly green plants tasted pretty damn good once you got over the fact it came from something that was screaming and flailing around a few moments ago, and when you’re thirsty for something to drink – well, sweet fruity juice is pretty nice.

Fluffy and I crested the rise while Miri was busy squeezing the guts out of the screaming fruit drink, where the orange cat and I laid eyes on a blasted scene reminiscent of the 1908 Tunguska Event, the flattened trees and foliage radiating out from a rather largish new crater where the escape pod presumably lay.

“That can’t be good,” I said after a wary pause at the scene of devastation, “The retro rockets looked like they failed, and the power cells ruptured.”

“Poor bastard,” Fluffy said as his bushy orange tail swished in agitation at what might have been us, “Those pods are supposed to be almost Ragnarok proof.”

“Well, the pod shell actually is almost indestructible and we can expect the equipment and supplies inside to be mostly intact and salvageable. The power cells and sublights hanging off it, not so much – it’s always been a flaw though the designers probably rationalised that it’s better to have things blowing up outside, than inside in the pod with you,” Miri said as she came up sipping creep juice from the makeshift gourd made from a creep, before holding it out to Fluffy and I to drink, “Here, the creep tastes like apple this time – drink it, keeping your energy and hydration up is important for survival until we can secure provisions.”

Miri was pretty pushy about taking every opportunity for us to stay hydrated as part of our survival training, since we didn’t have any provisions with us – her constant nagging could get pretty annoying about telling what we needed to do. Sure we knew she was a simulated person bent on imparting knowledge to us as part of the simulated reality we were stuck in, but there were moments Fluffy and I wish we could just turn her voice and advice off.

“Ugh,” Fluffy made a disgusted expression as he lowered the gourd of liquid plant guts from his mouth, “This is just wrong.”

“You didn’t have any problems hunting mice when we lived at the restaurant,” I commented – somehow rationalising that the spiky plant that had given up its life for the juice was only a simulated entity as I took the gourd from Fluffy and drank under Miri’s watchful eyes – the warmish creep juice did taste like apple this time, “What’s wrong with this, it’s not that bad?”

“Cats may have evolved hunting the silly little rodent buggers, but draw the line at eating them,” Fluffy said flatly, shaking his head in disgust, “Besides, I like my food in tins without bones.”

“Then how come you left them on my pillow for me to wake up to?,” I asked critically, handing the gourd back to Miri whom tied it in to a leather sling at her side, “Do you have any idea how traumatised I was having to scoop up the dead beady eyed critters in a dustpan and disposing of them?”

“Well, what did you expect me to do?,” Fluffy replied with catty sardonic nonchalance as we began down and climbing over the debris of fallen trees towards the pod, “You seemed to enjoy burying the rodents out in the garden. Who am I to deprive you of your happiness?”

I shook my head and bit back my retort that for the longest time, I though Fluffy was just being a dick trying to scare me with the unwanted gifts left on the pillow, so I’d been acting cool and quietly disposing the evidence in the backyard...of course, that was cat speak for being some deranged feline pecking order tacitly being accepted – sometimes, being able to talk to your pet and get answers for their bizarre and sometimes off putting behaviours, is not the enlightening experience some pundits make it out to be.

Anyway, the current model of single person emergency escape pods we were making out way towards, had a very low failure rate...this doesn’t mean they don’t fail period as demonstrated by the current pod, however. Given the stupidly robust specifications and the low probability of getting picked up in space, pod maintenance tends to be somewhat neglected in favour of more critical shipboard engineering like making sure the FTL warp drives coils were properly calibrated, the fusion plant was functioning proper, the sublight impulse engines were in working order, the life support system wasn’t growing something fungi in the vents and so on – the general wisdom that if you had to abandon ship and use an escape pod, you were pretty much dead anyway if there wasn’t a habitable planet in range.

There’s a rather morbid outlook that the lasgun in the pod supposedly intended for survival, is really there for a mercy kill when the rescue party fails to turn up, and the escape pods make for convenient ready to use coffins. That being said, the pod does have an appreciable amount of energy reserves to power the sublight engines and life support in the power cells – you mightn’t be completely sane if you’re stuck in the coffin for a month, but you’d be mostly alive if you didn’t eat coherent light first.

While Fluffy and I didn’t have a good idea exactly what happened on the bridge when we got shot by whatever it was that knocked out pinnace out of orbit, we were right above a habitable planet and hadn’t spent any appreciable time in the pod other than a few moments of a wild rollercoaster ride down to the ground.

It was pretty much over before we could panic, and then we were on the ground and popping the hatch.

We got to the pod which had more than sufficient time in the day we’d been walking towards it to cool down, and I began to reach for the latch to open the door when Fluffy’s eyes widened and slapped my hand down.

“Sammy!,” the big orange cat hissed meaningfully at me, “Dead Mouse!”

“Oh,” I paused with a frown at what Fluffy was getting at, then grasped the cat’s meaning – the hatch hadn’t been popped open, and the only reason why an escape pod would deploy is if there was someone in it – the vision of a dead mouse on my pillow, it’s glassy beady eyes staring accusingly at me and the memory of hot fluid sensation of childhood terror leaking out filled my imagination, “Oh!”

“Problem?,” Miri asked as I suddenly back away from the hatch.

“Yes,” I said meekly, with Fluffy standing behind me as a barrier between himself and the pod, with forepaws on the small of my back, “There’s a dead person in there.”

“Oh,” Miri looked down at us along moment, then smiled thinly, “Virgins, huh?”

Miri meant that we were new to violent death, which is sort of true.

Fluffy and I had seen death before – don’t knock the horror effect of a dead rodent until you wake up next to one on the pillow – but even knowing this was a simulation, seeing a dead person, even a simulated one, was a whole order of ‘hidden monster behind the wall’ kind of terror. We both nodded meekly at Miri’s question with downcast looks of shame that we weren’t proven to be as brave as our imagined heroism painted us in our dreams.

“Stand aside, then. I’ll do it,” Miri said as she stepped up and grasped the escape pod’s latch, took a deep breath and then pulled it up and twisted to disengage the seal, “You two might want to look away.”

Fluffy and I looked away as advised, not wanting to see what must be a horrible sight of an escape pod’s contents which had landed hard enough to cause a crater as the pod’s seal hissed with equalising pressure...and swung open with a click.

There was a pause as Miri saw what was inside, her eyes dilated then widened with horror.

“Bleuuuuurgh!,” the redhead cat eared woman turned her head and projectile vomited.

You know what they say about curiosity and the cat?

Fluffy and I didn’t really want to look, we really didn’t – but the sight that was so horrible it even made Miri puke, grabbed our curiosity and we looked...Fluffy and I stared round eyed as Miri dry heaved on the side of the pod upon seeing something she hadn’t been mentally prepared herself for. I suppose even the most hardened veterans use to seeing death, would get thrown for a loop when confronted with something they hadn’t expected to see.

There wasn’t one person on the pod but two. This wasn’t an entirely abnormal thing, since a pod could carry two people in a pinch and any pod is better than no pod when the ship your were on is blowing up around you – heck, Fluffy and I had shared a pod. Thing was where Fluffy and I had landed safely, the luckless pair inside this pod were both upside down – the pod had landed right side up, by the way.

Oh, and the dead victims inside the pod weren’t wearing anything, which give you a hint at what they’d been up to.

Privacy aboard a pinnace is kind of limited, so one of the few places which you can get some privacy to do personal activities which you normally wouldn’t want spectators to is inside an escape pod. Now, the thing is, pods don’t normally launch unless manually overridden in a specific idiot proof way which you couldn’t just do by accident, so there aren’t any embarrassing incidents of having to explain why you and a friend got spaced in the buff – or the ‘abandon ship’ alarm goes off in which case a pod will launch as soon as the it detects someone inside it.

Fluffy and I could imagine the scene of what might have happened...the pinnace we had been on was in orbit and there was a bit of down time while Miri’s recon team had been undergoing final briefing on the local situation. Two of our fellow crew members decided it was an opportune moment to get some quality time in the few hours before the landing to drop off the recon team, so they both wandered off and quietly jumped into a capsule to um, started doing stuff with each other when the ship got hit by some orbital weapon. The abandon ship alarm went off and the capsule automatically ejected upon detecting live bodies inside.

Surprise, shock, horror. Maybe a bit of debris damaged the pod while ejecting out of the ship immediately after we got hit, who knows, but the pod came down hard enough to cause a crater without the retros firing off. Even as bad a landing as this was, it might have been marginally survivable, albeit with possibly severe injuries, if the people inside the pod managed to brace properly.

Sure there was inertial gravity compensators in the pod which might have made the landing marginally survivable, Alteran tech is at least advanced enough to have a few technological gimmicks which terrestrial Earth didn’t. But the two people inside the pod were metaphorically and literally screwed, as they were upside down, and well, bracing with one’s neck isn’t an optimal crash position.

Fluffy and I let our breath out and gave each other bemused looks.

“You know...I’m so glad this game is PG rated,” Fluffy commented, as he let out the breath he’d been holding.

“Me too, Fluffy, me too,” I nodded, sucking in my lips, squinting at the tangle of broken limbs and squished organs that was left to the imagination, and trying to imagine what it looked like to Miri, “I wonder what it might look like if these two weren’t in there doing stuff when they got offed?”

“Hmm?,” Fluffy shrugged as the familiar save point text showed up;

[Save Point Reached – Miri suffers a debilitating trauma which Sammy and Fluffy avoid after mentally preparing themselves...Saved.]

Well, yeah, it was sort of true, I guess...but it helped a lot that the orange cat and I couldn’t actually see anything much with the mosaic censorship blocking out the dropped tomato effect, of the two tangled up victims whom Fluffy and I hadn’t really gotten to know properly. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, we’ll just have to see whether there’s any lingering trauma from the kid friendly censorship leaving the horror up to our imaginations as Miri looked awful from what she'd seen.

* * *


	33. Save Point Reached - My Mind Feels a Great Pain...And it's not from the rocks dropped on it.

...Somewhere in the Matrix...

There were three principle space faring races in the galaxy the Great Exodus was mired in.

The ‘youngest’ of whom were the cat eared Aldaa whom were a slender felinoid species with characteristics that were visually ‘human’ enough that Miri and her recon team could infiltrate them with some cosmetic surgery, whom had expanded from their densely populated home system which was characterised by vast space colonies, where upon they ran into the dominant dinosaurian Dau with whom they’d picked a territorial fight with in the distant past, and had been in a fight ever since...and then there were the ‘semi sentient’ non-technological civilisation of primitive fungi based communities of Oreks whom were by far the oldest inhabitants of the galaxy, sometimes derogatory called the ‘Shrooms’ or ‘Greenskins’ of whom the Creeps Miri had hunted were a sub branch, whom had expanded sometime in the very distant ancient past through the act of ‘sporing’ and drifting through the depths of space.

I know it sounds terrible, but the Alda and Dau had been picking on the Shrooms as a convenient alternative food – mushrooms are tasy and a good source of protein! – source since they got out into space. There were some pretty disturbing rumours the communities of fungoids had started evolving into Felinoid/Dinosaurian and recently Humanoid form from ‘sporing’ on the dead corpses, adopting some of the characteristics of the dead and had developed a primitive bizarre hybrid steam punkish level of tech emulating the more advanced sciences of their ancient animal based enemies.

I suppose that the ‘Creeps’ are Shrooms which have evolved from sporing on the local plant life, which is kind of creepy when you think about how contagious the opportunistic fungoids are when given the opportunity...it’s a good thing that once they hit an evolution point, they stop sporing, or the entire planetary ecosystems would be taken over by fungi.

Now, the Dau and the Alda on this planet had backslid rather drastically to a medieval level of technology. How they got here is anyone’s guess, but the two species had been fighting long enough that it wasn’t inconceivable that they were the descendants of survivors who’d crash landed on the planet ages ago. That was what Miri and her team were supposed to have been here to investigate, before we’d gotten shot down by something.

I’m not sure what this weird simulation was meant to be, but Fluffy and I got the odd impression it was supposed to be a ‘history’, and related to what was going on with us from the moment we’d Awakened to how we’d ended up in this simulated life a year ago now.

Thing was, it hadn’t felt like a year, it was just like a dream where you’re there as a bystander watching someone else living their life. It just felt like an odd montage where you wake up one day, and wonder what you’ve been doing for all this time that’s seemingly gone by in a flash.

We just woke up one day, and we were here in this life without really knowing how it happened...

* * *

“...creeEE-EEep...CrEeEe-eEEp...creeee-EEEp...”

The background noise was a creepy backdrop to the grisly mosaic censored contents of the escape pod.

“Stay away, you don’t want to see this,” Miri warned, wipig her mouth as she waved off Fluffy and I from getting a better look inside the coffin – ahem, escape pod, “You’re too young to be exposed to this.”

You tell a cat not to do something, and it’s like a magnet to iron filings – Fluffy’s whiskers splayed with interest as he leaned past me to get a better look despite the warning.

“Um, okay,” I tugged Fluffy back, despite the fact neither of us could see anything that wasn’t PG rated because of the mosaic censoring, “Stop trying to look, Fluffy.”

“I’m a cat. My curiosity’s killing me,” Fluffy strained to look past me into the opened hatch despite Miri’s angered glare at us to stay our distance, “The mosaics blocking everything just makes it worse.”

“Fluffy, you had issues with Miri butchering a creep, and that’s a glorified fungus – what makes you think you can handle dead human bodies which have been turned into chunky salsa?,” I warned the big orange cat whom was looking over my head with big tufted orange paws over my shoulders, “The only reason we can’t see past the mosaics at the bloody mess, is because the victims were having it off when they got killed.”

“Ewww – good point,” Fluffy paused thoughtfully, “Without the PG rating, we’d probably be puking our guts up too – though I think a body with that many pulverised bones is probably less like chunky salsa under the mosaics, than a bag of dropped eggs leaving out the orifices.”

Miri stared at us with that desperate sick vacant eyed ‘I’m not gonna puke’ look little kids have just before they do, then her hands shot up to her mouth as her cheeks bulged in an effort to keep it in before losing that futile battle, “Bleeeurgh!”

“See? It must look pretty horrible if you can make out that it’s two bodied under that mosaic, even if they’re all tangled and mixed up like an omelette,” I chided the cat, “Do you really want to see something like that? I mean, look at Miri, she looks like you when you’re coughing up a hairball and you know how much you hate it when that happens.”

“Ugh – good point,” Fluffy stopped struggling to go look after the negative image – being a long haired cat, Fluffy had a real problem with hairballs even with the intensive daily grooming...come to think of it, it’s been a while since I combed the cat in this sim world, and he hasn’t gone off like an orange hair bomb like in real life, “I guess I’m not that desperate for a look after all.”

“Will you two shut up?,” an ill looking Miri complained at us, looking decidedly green around the gills and ready to upchuck again despite purging herself to the point of dry retching, “I still have to get in this thing to salvage stuff.”

“Whoops, sorry – we’re going okay?,” I called out, pushing the curious cat back whom was now co-operating with moving away, “We’re good now.”

Fluffy and I obediently stayed away from the opened hatch as a grim faced Miri leaned inside, and began opening compartments to salvage stuff like emergency rations, survival equipment and the ubiquitous survival lasgun which she arbitrarily threw in our direction for Fluffy and I to collect.

By the time Miri had finished scavenging, the sun had set.

We could have given the two unfortunates in the pod a burial, but Miri was exhausted from her ordeal and didn’t want us exposed to the grisly mosaic censorship which Fluffy and I had developed the paranoid suspicion might be a plot device for what we’d find at the next save point...turns out we were right, just not in the fashion we expected after Miri shut the hatch and we moved off a distance to set up camp for the night.

“...creeEE-EEep...CrEeEe-eEEp...creeee-EEEp...”

After sharing out the stuff of which Miri gave me the lasgun since it was pretty much one of those weapons which is next to useless unless you’re looking to commit suicide, we fell into an exhausted sleep after Miri took first watch to the wild calls of disturbed and wounded creep survivors whom were still stumbling and flopping around the edges of the crater and blast zone from the pod’s detonated power cells, Fluffy and I wondered what fruity flavour the next creep Miri harvested in the morning would taste like...

* * *

The Creeps ‘smelled’ the alluring stink of ripe carrion the moment the escape pod hatch had been popped open, and had began to move towards it even as the gagging fake Alda cat eared redhead had begun ransacking the pod and tossing out equipment and food to the boy and orange cat while holding her breath and trying not to look too hard.

Mushrooms aren’t particularly picky where their nutritional needs come from, and it’s a grisly fact that mushroom hunters tend to have an undesired record of finding missing bodies hidden away in the damp and dark nooks where mushrooms grow, when they’re out foraging.

The escape pod hatch had been closed but not locked after the cat eared redhead had finished scavenging everything that was useful, but the creeps weren’t particularly deterred. As the tentacle mushrooms swarmed over the pod, questing tentacles found the hatch and began heaving in unison that after a few moment...the unsecured hatch popped open again.

The Creeps swarmed inside the pod and feeding tendrils extruded.

Things might have ended there, were it not for the presence of a rare Spore Bearer amongst the feeding fungoid plant hybrids – which popped ad blew its load over the simulated human remains and the creeps.

The circumstances were just right for the spores to take and adapt – there was a female and a male example of an Alteran in the pod which the creeps ingested along with the spores, and something was born from the unholy evolution as the mutated spores hijacked the Creeps feeding on the bodies...the satiated creeps began changing them in the darkness of the pod.

What emerged, were shaped like a plant like parody of a human...and like humans since the dawn of history which distinguished them from the other animals around them, the hybrid monsters were a tool users.

* * *

Lasguns are nicknamed ‘flashlight’ in Alteran service for the simple reason it’s such a versatile tool which goes beyond its use as a mere weapon. Depending on how you dial the focus and the power output intensity, it can be used as a flashlight, a fire starter, a welder, a cutting tool, a last ditch surgical instrument...frankly, its uses are many and there’ve been a great deal of creative uses the humble flashlight has been put to when push came to shove.

It’s for that reason the lasgun has been included in survival pods as standard issue equipment...however, the lasgun does have some serious drawbacks. Its battery energy density only allows for 30 ‘full burn’ shots, and although it’s beam power is quite devastating against exposed skin and flesh under the right circumstances, it’s effectiveness against armour and composites is dismal to the point lasguns are regarded as a secondary last resort backup arm at best, to standard kinetic and portable directed plasma weapons which have some punch to them.

Miri hadn’t even paused in giving me the lasgun when sharing out the loot – it was just a tube which could be conveniently bent to a pistol grip with a trigger and a beam intensity and manual focal dial on its side, and wasn’t the most ergonomic weapon compared to a tried and trusted knife and rapier. It’s a testimony to just how ineffective the lasgun is, that Miri preferred going toe to toe with a foe at hand combat range than rely on a lasgun...for that matter, I used the one I had in my survival kit as an improvised grenade against the saurian Fluffy and I ran into, than try to use it as a beam weapon in the forlorn home it might do more than surface scarring the lizardian’s natural bony armour.

Anyway, we’d moved a distance away from the pod and Miri had taken first watch. Fluffy had volunteered to take the middle watch as his nocturnal catty nature often often had him up and prowling in the dark, and then I’d been woken up to see out my watch after a night’s fitful rest till morning, while pondering on the weirdness of life which had led Fluffy and I ‘here’.

The strange noises and calls of the forest were somewhat ameliorated by the comfort of having a flashlight in hand, though I refrained from shining the beam at every strange noise in favour of feeding the campfire and keeping the flames alight. Miri slept like a log compared to my fitful sleep...Fluffy had woken up a few times to look around, but had gone back to cat napping with a natural animal alertness.

Towards the morning dawn, a blanketing fog had sprung up which cut down visibility.

It was then I heard a strange squelching noise approaching.

...piku...piku...piku...piku...piku...

Like footsteps walking through damp sucking muddy ground...and unlike the noises I’d been hearing all night, the mysterious thing in the fog was getting closer. I held my breath as a shadowy shape emerged, which looked very alien with a large mushroomy head on a spindly body about two feet tall which I pointed my lasgun towards.

As it got closer, I began making out details – the mushroom ‘head’ wasn’t, it was actually a large rock the alien was carrying above its head with spindly hands. The ‘piku’ noises I’d been hearing was due the fact the rock was heavy enough that it cause its spindly legs to sink into the ground, that every time it took a step there was an accompanying squelching ‘piku’ sound of suction.

Then the inhuman creature stopped as if sensing me, and turned to stare with inhuman black beady eyes...it had a face, a brown woody face like a parody of a human baby’s with a flat woody mossy crown atop its head like amateurishly carved hair, which I’d initially mistaken for a neck as it balanced the rock atop it’s head.

Then the bizarre plant like creature opened its mouth and uttered an unintelligible grunt.

“Groot.”

I was hoping it would just go away on its own if I kept quiet.

That hope was dashed as Fluffy woke to the nearby disturbance, “What the Fu – “

The creature, the ‘Groot’, extended its spindly arms and in a raised way I just knew it was going to throw and drop the rock on the orange cat’s head...so I shot it with the lasgun on reflex, as a waking Fluffy was still getting his bearings.

“GROOT!”

The coherent beam of concentrated sunshine instantly set the creature’s mossy hair alight, which it proceeded to let go of the rock in favour of trying to put out the fire. This demonstration of an inability to comprehend cause and effect was a bad idea, as the rock promptly dropped on its flaming head and proceeded to drive the Groot head first into the ground with a crunching splat noise like a melon dropped on a hard surface...oh, coincidentally, putting the fire out too.

Miri uncoiled as she woke from her sleep at the disturbance, rapier and dagger materialising in her hands as she took in the scene of the thrashing spindly and oddly humanoid body of the Groot whose head was crushed under the rock it had been carrying, before turning her attention to peer into the foggy surrounds with an alert Fluffy.

“Report,” Miri whispered a harsh commanding tone.

“That creature – the Groot, came out of the fog holding a rock,” I said quickly, “It was going to throw it at us so I shot it.”

“Good work,” Miri nodded as she went over to the spindly plant person, and stabbed it with her rapier until it stopped moving, and we relaxed at the creature’s demise.

“Groot!”

"Rowr?!?," the fur on Fluffy's back rose as the three of us tensed right back up and looked intently into the fog, where shadowy figures were moving towards us.

“Groot!!”

“Oh shit,” Fluffy said, his ears rotated in a form of feline echo location as ‘groot’ noises emerged all around us in the fog, “We’re surrounded!”

“Groot!!!”

The tree men creatures stumbled out of the fog carrying rocks, which they began throwing at us...it was just like playing dodgeball with the girls, and though that had been a year ago from our odd simulated perception of time, the experience of what to do came back to us like it was just yesterday.

Fluffy and I ‘hardened’ a sheet of air, and the rocks deflected to either side of us – really, the girls had throw tennis balls faster and harder towards the end of their practice.

“You’re Psykers!,” a surprised Miri exclaimed, as Fluffy and I winced at the term as we intercepted rocks which bounced off the invisible shield of hardened air. Then her grim demeanour changed to one of glee, “Never mind! Support Meee!!!”

Psykers were the Alteran version of witches, and we’d found out enough about them in the past year to know neither of us wanted to be nominated to go to Psyker training. It was common knowledge that Psykers automatically got shuttled off to the front lines after they were sufficiently trained in ‘combat support’, and while their reputation was ‘glorious’...well, Fluffy and I had concluded that we’d rather keep our heads down till we figured a way to escape this simulation.

A maniacally laughing Miri broke ranks and ran forth at the surrounding Groots whom were converging on us, automatically expecting Fluffy and I to shield her from the thrown rocks as she went berserk on the attack, stabbing at the rock throwing tree creatures in the fog, confident that she had a pair of Psykers at her back protecting her deranged ass...oh, the other thing we hated about being found out as Psykers.

People tended to develop a bad case of hero complex with Psykers around, often charging forth in the odd belief that they were bullet proof until the Psykers burned themselves out covering them. There was the odd and bizarre logic that it was best to get the tactical advantage while the Psykers lasted, rather than conserving scarce resources for when it’s really needed – the Alterans had a really crumby sense of military tactics which even a four – or was that five now? – year old could grasp was sub optimal.

[Save Point Reached – Sammy and Fluffy are revealed as Psykers, and acquire combat support experience...Saved...]

Fluffy and I now had added incentive to find a way out of this simulation, because it was going to cause us a lot of headaches if we survived to leave this planet. We'd both understood going to Psyker school was a death sentence, the frontlines were no picnic...

* * *


	34. Save Point Reached - Sammy, Fluffy and Si - ahem, Miri, meets Kore Tama...

...Somewhere in the Matrix...

In the Grim Past of the 41st Millennium of the Great Exodus, There Was War...

“GROOooo – ooot...”

Miri removed her knife from the brain case of the newly hatched pod person with a nasty sucking sound, which had crawled out of the escape pod. The pod plant humanoid creature dropped at her feet with a death spasm as its slimy green neural ichor leaked out of the new hole in its head. Miri gave it a kick to check it wasn't feigning, before turning her attention to the escape pod which she’d ransacked the previous night, her face a mask of grim loathing as she peaked inside the opened hatch and blanched at what she found.

“Get firewood,” the cat eared redhead woman commanded in a dead tone, “And drag the dead creatures here. This – this abomination must never be allowed to become a mainstream feature of the Orek.”

“I wanna look,” Fluffy said, and darted forth to peer over the rim of the pod’s opened hatch before Miri could stop him. The cat stared into the interior a long moment, then his eyes bulged as he proceeded to hack up orange hairballs until he was dry heaving, before gingerly creeping back over to me on all fours and began forcefully pushing me away with head bunts as he stated quietly, “The mosaic’s gone.”

[Save Point Reached – Fluffy has suffered a psychological trauma...Saved.]

“Hey, why are you head bunting me like that now?,” I asked as Fluffy dug his paws into the ground and forcefully bunted me away from the pod as Miri wiped the green ichor off her knife before sheathing it at her side, then grabbed the spasming pod person and chucking it inside the capsule, “I thought we both agreed that this was just a simulation, a game – it can’t really screw with our minds unless we let it, right?”

“Because I Luv you just the way you are,” Fluffy replied shuddered stiffly with repressed horror of a cat who has seen something which couldn’t be unseen, “You don’t want to see the ‘Thing’ that’s inside that pod, so lets just go grab some of the flattened trees around us for firewood so we can burn the tentacle abomination before it spams out more psychotic pod people.”

“Um – isn’t Spam an American preserved ersatz ham substitute comprised of mystery meat and – er, more mystery meat?,” I walked forth on my own volition to avoid Fluffy’s determined head bunting, “What does that have to do with what’s in there?”

“We both watched Monty Python’s Flying Circus on the TV before we got here, remember the Spam sketch?,” Fluffy replied, then shuddered again, “It’s a mashed up Spam monster with tentacles splattered on a skeleton, move along move along, nothing to see.”

The mental image was sufficiently off putting, that I made a mental note double down on not to touching any mystery meat in a can which came out of the US, when Fluffy and I eventually got back home. There are some things even a starving cat shouldn’t touch, and Spam is one of them due the high salt content as a cat can only safely ingest 40 milligrams of salt a day while 1/6 of a tin of Spam contains something like 800 milligrams – the trials of owning a pet and ensuring food is safe for your furry buddy to eat is long and worrying, which really hadn’t stopped Fluffy dumpster diving and going to town on Spam tins he found in the neighbour’s trash when the lid wasn’t firmly on, back when we were still living with my parents in the restaurant.

Cleaning up after a sick long haired upchucking cat with chronic diarrhoea is not a fun thing to deal with, and I took note that if an orange furred garbage disposal like Fluffy couldn’t stomach the stuff, then it probably wasn’t good for humans to eat either. Grampa wouldn’t touch Spam on account of the things he’d heard about the suspicious manufactured pink block masquerading as meat during the second world war, and my dad refused to go near it as he’d been traumatised by Grampa as to what kind of unidentifiable ‘mystery meat’ was in the stuff. 

Me?...Well, Orange Cat + Chronic Squirts = Not Safe To Eat.

I know better than to eat stuff which makes my cat blow from both ends. 

So, my mental image of Fluffy’s description of a tentacle Spam monster making itself a home inside the capsule was pretty gruesome, and I decided seeing the thing first hand was an unnecessary trauma I needn’t suffer as Fluffy had already taken one of the team.

Fluffy and I gathered firewood – there was plenty lying around, and pretty soon the Spam monster inside the capsule was shrieking as it roasted in the fire Miri had started, trying to crawl out only for the cat eared redhead woman to ruthlessly kick it back inside. That lasted for a little while until the struggled stopped, and Miri turned her attention to hauling the dead Groots – which were as good a name as any – back to the pod and threw them inside...the last thing anyone on this planet needed was for the dead fungoid pod people who’d attacked us this morning sporing, and cloning themselves with the new ‘humanoid’ features it had acquired.

We took a short break to eat, then we were marching off to the next save point.

* * *

We ran into the next bunch of locals after half a day’s walk, where the cat eared Alda were busy fleeing their reptilian counterparts whom had apparently emerged victorious from the clash. We could see the local equivalent of vultures – something which looked cross between a an albatross and a feathered pterodactyl – circling overhead and Miri took the precautious of steering clear of the area, long before the survivors fleeing the battle were encountered.

The cat eared Alda had backslid a long way from the technological heights which their space faring ancestors possessed when they’d crash landed on the planet, and been reduced to the level of swords, spears and arrows. While they’d managed to establish a quasi medieval level of civilisation, they were still very much pre-industrial...the Dau weren’t that much better off technologically from the initial scans which had been carried out by the last Alteran recon through the system, but they’d opted for a form of government that was superficially a Greco-Roman style republic.

Now, you’d think that having a more ‘advanced’ form of government would give the Dau a leg up when it came to subjugating the rather more fragmented Alda, or at least, that would be the conventional wisdom on Earth as viewed from the point of view through the rose tinted vision of the liberal left. The reality of the political systems on Earth is somewhat more murky and hypocritical, where the so called ‘Democracy’ of the United States of America’s ability to rise above the sometimes rabid political infighting is hampered by insane internal partisan politics which detract from dealing with real issues, which is no more or less effective than the slightly saner parliamentary system of the British ‘Monarchy’ to rise above the stratified class system and popularism of the moment.

This is to say, both the Dau Republic and the Alda Monarchists are crippled by political infighting, where their efforts to extract a decisive victory over each other is tempered by their own political foes supposedly on their own sides, whom would take the opportunity to bury the dagger in the backs of whatever faction was in power...pretty much like Earth politics, where the mind warping reality of your political opponents often trumps the reality normal people have to deal with.

And then there were the breakoff factions which had gone off to establish their own mini-states and grown enough to act as ‘buffers’ between the two main factions that even though they’d backslid somewhat further down the technological and political food chain, they were either too convenient or inconvenient to stamp out – ergo, the ‘barbarians’.

There were a lot of back and forth raids and battles between the satellite ‘barbarian’ nations on the edges of the two larger ‘Empires’.

“Halt ! Friend or Foe!?” challenged the platinum blonde Alda woman in half plate armour and thigh high boots – a genuine Alda as opposed to Miri whom was wearing surgical cosmetic fakes, whose high quality steel plate armour looked decidedly battered and dented from hostile encounters as she drew her longsword, “State your name!”

Fluffy and I stared from long moments as we laid eyes on the legendary ‘boob armour’ which protected the swell of the platinium blonde Alda’s chest. Miri confidently took point at being challenged with hands held open to her sides to indicate she wasn't going to draw her rapier, since she was in the proper disguise while Fluffy and I probably looked a little too alien to get away with speaking for ourselves – we’d both encountered the local saurian Dau when we landed, but this was our first time seeing an Alda in the flesh.

“I am the Mercenary Miri ap Pel, daughter of Siri the Fruit Merchant. I vouch that Sam the Tinker and Fluffy the Scribe mean no harm to your or yours,” Miri introduced herself, to which Fluffy and I exchanged glances at the cat eared redhead’s smoothly delivered cover story and our supposed occupations...which did kind of fit into our specialisations as an Engineer and Software Programmer, “We are travellers on our way home, so we are no foe of yours.”

“Oh? A southroner by your naming,” the plate armoured cat eared platinum blonde said after a long pause, eyeing Miri a moment whom notably hadn’t drawn her rapier, then us before lowering her sword slightly with a wary amber eyed look, “I am Kore of the House of Tama, a Defender of these lands.”

“Well met, though it seems you have been in battle recently,” Miri observed the beaten up plate all over the armour woman who looked to have been pretty well trashed – interesting fact about those old tales about knights in shining armour...plate steel dents, “Is there danger ahead?”

“Yes – the accursed Dau have bested us, and are scarcely half a day behind,” the elfin faced cat eared platinum blonde’s features turned grim as she clenched her fist with a glance over her shoulder in the direction she’d been fleeing, “The warband has been scattered in battle and the Dau are slaughtering the wounded left on the field. It is not safe here.”

Fluffy and I looked around warily at the forest for enemies that might be lurking out of sight, then cocked our heads thoughtfully as we returned to watching the two women...well, warily sniff each other out.

“I always wondered what cats say to each other when they meet,” I commented to Fluffy, whose tail was curling with interest. For some odd reason, the image of two cats meeting each other for the first time came to mind – not that the Alda had tails, but the upright cat ears gave that impression, “What happens next, Fluffy?”

“Usually they sniff each other’s ass once they establish who’s dominant...come to think of it, I’d pay to see something like that,” the low browed orange cat replied back in a whisper with an interested squint, as his bushy orange tail curled sinuously, “It’d be more interesting if they had tails, though we don’t have the time to blow doing the scratch and sniff routine if the enemy is close by.”

Neither Miri nor Kore changed their stance, but somehow – something did change in that way your friendly cat shaped buddy suddenly decides to throw a hissy fit over something you said or did, that you don’t have the slightest idea what set the furry friend off. The two women went from wary caution at each other, to tensed and metaphorically pissing napalm within a blink of an eye, and all of it aimed at Fluffy...you know, I think I finally understand what that saying about women having catlike qualities actually means.

It’s not a flattery.

Fluffy prudently sidestepped behind me, scant cover that I offered in the face of two offended females whom were now glaring in my direction.

“The Mahn-ki is right,” Kore said in that offended female ‘I want to neuter you and would, if we had the time to waste trying to find something resembling manhood’ tone of voice. She decided we weren’t a threat as the reptilians behind her so she sheathed her longsword and directed, “Follow me, the city is this way and you should seek refuge behind it’s walls before the Dau arrive.”

Fluffy’s whiskers twitched and splayed a moment, then looked perplexed as the danger from the platinum blonde passed upon her long sword being sheathed, “Did Puss in Boots just call me a monkey?”

[Save Point Reached – Miri, Sammy and Fluffy establish amicable relations with Kore Tama, and follow her to refuge...Saved.]

“No – I think she called you a Mahn-ki,” I replied to Fluffy, as I hastened after the two cat eared women, “I don’t know what it means, but it’s probably just as insulting.”

* * *


	35. Save Point Reached - This is Not the City you imagined...

...Somewhere in the Matrix...

Turns out the expression ‘Mahn-ki’ meant ‘cute pet’, and a visibly restrained Kore was not above petting Fluffy who was too tired to protest, when we stopped the pace of jogging and walking to take breaks.

Kore was surprisingly nice about Fluffy having fluffy orange fur all over his body, and me having ears on the sides of my head and round irises instead of oval ones. The Alda marooned on this planet obviously pre-dated the encounter with the Alterans who did look surprisingly Homo Sapiens on the outside, and the cat eared people weren’t all that prejudiced as their space going cousins whom seemed intent on wiping us out for some inexplicable reason.

As we made our way through the forest, some of Kore’s friends from the warband she’d been part of managed to link up with us, having broken off contact with the Dau whom they denigrated with the name ‘Lizards’ when referring to saurian species. From the description of the clash, the lizards numbered somewhere in the region of a thousand, and they’d turned up with a metaphorical and literal axe to grind.

A thousand hostile enemies doesn’t sound like a lot – but when all you’ve got are bows and arrows, axes, swords and spears, suddenly a thousand bodies on the opposite side is a significant problem when you have to go toe to toe with a someone snarling at your face like a British football hooligan, and bent on sticking those pointy things in you.

It is especially problematic, when you only bothered to bring fifty people to the riot...Kore’s people had whom had managed to break off contact, had done so by ditching the armour plate which Kore managed to retain, and their cumbersome weapons in favour of running faster without the burden...ironically, that same weight slowed Kore down that the other less principled stragglers ‘volunteered’ to run ahead of our group to warn Tama City about the lizard incursion.

Well, it seemed like a reasonable proposition and they weren’t doing us much good, that Kore let them go ahead to bring word of the defeat. There were four beefy looking Alda whom at least retained their bows and arrows along with a hodge podge of chain mail, scale, laminated or leather armour whom stayed with us...and eventually, we reached the proximity our destination that Kore and her friends’ defeated grim demeanour visibly relaxed at the prospect of safety.

“Behold!,” silky silver platinum blonde hair whipped in the breeze as Kore dramatically stood astride on the rise like some pinup from a sword and sorcery fantasy in her battered and scratched plate half armour, her right arm raised proudly in a grand gesture as Fluffy and I tiredly huffed up to see the destination we’d been force marching towards, “Tama City.”

The big orange cat and I crested the hill blocking our line of sight, and we both paused for long moments as we noted the farmlands which had been hacked out of the forest, leading up to our destination on the small hill.

“Please,” Fluffy said after a few blinks as he sat down on his behind with bushy orange tail twitching in that unimpressed way cats exude when the humans did something inscrutable, “Tell me this log fort and small village is just a settlement on the outskirts, and Tama city is beyond the next hill?”

“No,” I said with a cough, hands on my knees as I panted to get my breath doubled over and drenched in sweat from the fast pace of jogging and walking to get this far, “She’s definitely pointing at it.”

“On the bright side, we can just keep running and pretend holing up here in the flammable bonfire waiting to happen, never crossed our minds,” a equally unimpressed Miri nodded with and smiled with thin lipped amusement. The two antagonistic strange cats meeting analogy the cat eared redhead had with Kore I’d alluded to upon their their initial meeting, had gotten a little abrasive during our cross country jog through the forest, where some of the stragglers from the warband Kore had been a party of had linked up with us, “Just saying, it’s an option.”

“How dare you malign Tama city’s greatness!,” Kore looked insulted, her fine elfin features was just trademarked by nature to look down her aristocratic aquiline nose at those beneath her social rank, “See the defensive wall surrounding all the buildings? Few cities in the North can claim such a thing, and the keep is crafted of stone!”

Miri, Fluffy and I pondered on the defensive wood log structure which ringed the ‘city’ of twenty three buildings – we’d quickly counted thatched rooftops jam packed together which peeked up above the three meter wooden log palisade atop the earth mound berm which did in fact surround the hill – and noted that the ‘peasants’ from the surrounding farms were bringing in their animals and food to shelter inside the fort which gave it some sense of scale. The ‘keep’ which Kore had referred to, didn’t look at all impressive sitting in a dominant position overlooking everything atop the hill. It looked to be a stone three level tower with battlements on top...an artillery man’s wet dream to my eyes, something which kids my age have great fun laboriously constructing in miniature in the backyard, and more fun demolishing with rocks playing with toy soldiers pretending the place was under siege.

The 70s were like that, and I’m sure cheap plastic ‘Made in Hong Kong’ injection mould toy soldiers became buried archaeological artefacts for puzzled later generations to unearth, whose clueless historians would confidently describe them as ‘religious icons’ worshipped in a forgotten past...hey, I’ve noticed that whenever the archaeological and historical community stumbles upon an Oopart or something they didn’t have a clue about, they automatically describe it as a ‘religious artefact’, even when it’s pretty obvious some of those so called clay ‘fertility figures’ were made by bored kids who wanted a doll to play with.

“Um – not to be critical or anything, but just how many soldiers do you have?,” Miri asked Kore with a perplexed look as we began making our way towards Tama city, her thumbnail estimate of the entire population of Tama city and its surrounds probably didn’t break the two thousand mark with the kids included.

“The City Lord of Tama has a hundred warriors in his service,” Kore replied proudly, her gauntlet hand clenching on the pommel of her longsword, “Half of which were called to investigate the disturbance in the forest where they found glory in battle!”

Miri forced a twitching smile as she nudged one of the tired chainmail and boiled leather armour armsmen, an inviting smile on her face, “How many lizards did you guys run into again?”

“Lots...you think I stopped to count how many when some scaly green bastard is trying to bury his axe in my skull?,” the armsman replied dryly, “Could’ve been hundreds, it could have been a thousand or more – counting heads wasn’t a top priority.”

“Um, Kore – does this kind of thing happen a lot?,” the more I thought about it, the details began springing out as the peasantry obviously weren’t meant to hole up in the place full time, but live in their hovels and farms outside the defences – but this still didn’t make up for the disparity in numbers of live bodies, “I mean, if half the garrison’s been lost in the forest already with maybe eight survivors we’ve seen so far, there aren’t a whole lot of soldiers standing between the Dau and the civilians?”

“How do you mean?,” Kore gave me an odd look of confusion, “Everyone will be fighting on the city walls, to keep the Lizards out.”

“We’re screwed,” Fluffy said flatly, as he grabbed me by the pants leg and began tugging me away from the city, “It’s safer in the woods.”

“Medieval armies don’t have much of a supply chain – they tend to forage and devastate the local countryside,” Miri noted aloud with a thing lipped smile, “And I can’t imagine the lizards getting picky about eating orange furred creatures they manage to bag.”

“Fuckit, having a wall between me and them sounds like a good idea,” the orange cat abruptly reversed tact as he bounced ahead of us, “Hurry up, Sam – them snakes are right behind us.”

And with that, we entered Tama city...and it was as much a massive let down as we’d imagined.

Frankly, Tama ‘city’ just wasn’t that impressive in our jaded modern eyes – it was smaller than a suburban block back home in Australia, heck, the vocational school Fluffy and I’d attended aboard the L337 was about the size of a contemporary primary school in Australia, dwarfed Tama city and it was only one of six located on the structural ‘arms’ aboard the City Core, which pretty much resembled a glass domed space going snow globe.

Kore and the warriors left us at the gate to report to the city lord, and we were summarily drafted and placed on a spot at the wall which we were supposed to defend with the local farmers. The grim faced locals were assigned spots on the earth ramparts behind the log palisade, and armed with whatever heirloom weapons or farming implements they managed to scrounge up...

[Save Point Reached – Miri, Fluffy and Sammy have been drafted to defend the walls of Tama City...Saved.]

The log palisade walls were only three meters tall behind a ditch on top of an earth berm – why three meters tall? Well, so that the defenders standing on top of the earth ramparts behind the log wall could stick pointy things down at the potential invaders trying to scramble up the ditch – sure that would also expose the defenders to the same pointy things going up the other way, but...well, medieval hand to hand fighting didn’t have to make any real sense to people use to the luxury of an assault rifle – preferable with a grenade launcher and plenty of ammo.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have any modern weapons worth mentioning here.

Miri had her rapier and knife, but neither Fluffy nor I had any weapons – well, sure, there was the lasgun I had. But that only had thirty or so shots and the battery took forever to recharge with the built in wind up recharger, and it wasn’t a serious weapon than a tool...on the other hand, there were plenty of rocks just lying around we could throw in a pinch, and after some further thought on the matter, it wasn’t all that difficult to improvise a sling with a few scraps of leather.

And then we were stuck waiting for the Dau to turn up.

Odd thing I became aware of while waiting; I felt much safer having a wall between myself and danger, even though Fluffy and I’d been disparaging it on the way in. It sort of made the difference between standing one’s ground, and giving in to running away screaming when the enemy turns up with sharp pointy things they want to stick in you...oh, and my sweat from all the running earlier had dried, and I’d have killed for a hot bath and fresh clothes...

Anyone who thinks war is fun, is either a religious nut or a total idiot.

* * *


	36. Save Point Reached - The horror of medieval life as a background mook

...Somewhere in the Matrix...

Tama City wasn’t much, the houses were constructed of primarily of wood though we could see the distinctive panelling of ‘wattle and daub’ walls of medieval buildings, some of which were two levels up...and perhaps more importantly as far as liveability was concerned, it was a whole lot less stinky than Fluffy and I’d imagined a medieval town or village to be.

The Alda concept of sanitation and sewage was at least advanced enough, that people weren’t dumping their poo on the street and any unsuspecting traffic below them which necessitated the medieval European custom of wearing hats and head coverings – they at least had the foresight if not the actual sewage system, to collect soil at one end of town to be ‘flushed’ downhill into the nearby river, where it would be somebody else’s problem...just thinking of what people downstream where drinking, gave me psychological stomach cramps.

The street between the houses was graded with small pebbles and smoothed rocks which made crunchy noises when walked upon though the ‘street sweepers’ had to brush the pebble surfaces back into place if carts tore ruts in the grading. I suppose it was a relatively cheap and easy, if primitive, upgrade from exposed earth which would turn into a muddy quagmire in rain – different civilisation, different technological solutions.

But best of all considering what the street was made of, I had plenty of ammunition for my trusty new improvised sling simply lying around on the ground for the taking. I had ample time to practice, that some of the cat eared Alda and archers stationed on our assigned spot on the gathered to watch me lobbing stones, and while my ‘unassisted’ aim was pretty lousy...well, I’m a Witch with a Familiar assisting my aim – or as Miri had labelled Fluffy and I, we are Psykers.

With Fluffy concentrating on spotting and terminal guidance of the projectile, all I had to do was concentrate on twirling the loaded sling from atop the rampart while taking cover out of sight behind the log palisade, and giving the stone enough launch velocity with an assisted ‘boost’ before passing things off to the cat peeking over the top of the log wall to take over, to make a relatively short ranged weapon into something truly accurately lethal at long ranges akin to a ‘modern’ sniper rifle.

“Up,” I shouted to Fluffy, having discovered the best way to throw a rock was swinging the sling back and forth enough to start twirling the it over my head, which was space consuming and was dangerous to anyone standing on either side of me, but at least I had a better chance of not hitting the top of the palisade and having the rock ricochet right back at me.

“Loose,” Fluffy verbalised as he concentrated on ‘catching’ the rock and guiding it to the target out in the field he’d picked out, not that he needed say anything as I ‘felt’ the moment he wanted me to let go before he said anything.

Launching was a simple matter of letting go one side of the strings on the sling, which flung the rock at quite a nasty speed without the extra kick of telekinetic push of acceleration I boosted it with, that sent the projectile hurtling along with a supersonic crack as Fluffy smoothly took over terminal guidance...’effective’ range of an archer’s bow was roughly 350 meters when volley fired, though aimed range was markedly less.

You could actually achieve a similar range with a sling, but with Fluffy ‘riding’ the stone to its target, we were potting targets out to 800 meters with sufficient residual force to turn the rocks I was sending out into so much puffs of fragmented shards when they hit something solid.

We got proficient enough that Miri decided we were much more effective as long ranged snipers, than supporting her until the Dau closed into hand to hand range where we were to revert to supporting her while she went berserk, as per established Psyker practice in the Alteran Order of Battle.

[Save Point Reached – Fluffy and Sammy learn how to combine Psyker abilities, and have become a sniper team...Saved.]

Witch abilities, are such a cheat.

We practice shooting stones from the height vantage of our position on the wall with the Alda making bets on our accuracy, until late in the day a commotion was heard where the gates were located. The Alda manning the ramparts weren’t professional soldiers, so there was a surge of curious people who began migrating over towards the closing gates on the other side of the city from where we were positioned on the wall.

The Dau had arrived.

“Back to your positions, scum – back I say, or I’ll beat you so bad your mothers won’t recognise you,” the armsman who was the only sufficiently well equipped and armoured person on our section of the wall, brandished his spear meaningfully at everyone to go back to their positions under threat of a beating, “You’ll see the Lizards soon enough.”

He was right too.

We got a view of the enemy though it took a while for the lizards to filter around to our side of the city at a sedentary walk – no need to rush, it wasn’t like Tama city was going anywhere. There were only about fifty of them well out of bow range, which was about even with the Alda on our side of the wall. The numbers looked rather a lot until I began counting them, and was a little surprised just how little the Dau had dispatched to our side of the city.

“Um, I’m not complaining, but I thought there would be more of them?,” I looked askance at Miri being somewhat grateful that we weren't important enough to be in the thick of the upcoming violence.

“There are,” she replied with a shrug, “This is just a blocking force, to make sure nobody tries to escape out the back if the gates fall.”

“Why would they attack the gates?,” Fluffy frowned as he looked on either side of the ramparts we were standing on, recalling the two rather significant watchtowers on either side of the gate we’d passed through, “That’s probably the strongest part of the defences.”

“Well, yes – but there’s a nice convenient road leading up to the front gate instead of the ditch in front of our earth berm and log wall,” Miri commented dryly, “And the military mind is a lazy and not terribly bright creature of habit, when there’s a path of least resistance to follow.”

The big orange cat and I digested that statement, mentally reviewed our knowledge on the history of human combat back home, and came to the conclusion that a great many of the historically lauded ‘Great Military Minds and Strategists’ were simply blithering idiots who got lucky because the people they were up against were bigger morons than they were.

The bulk of the reptilian Dau army were focused on the front gates where the Alda city big wigs were situated. Miri was right about the lizards facing us were on our side of the wall were lightly armed skirmishers, more of a blocking force than anything that was meant to assault our lightly held side of the walls which probably would have fallen quickly if anything substantial had come at them.

And then, as the light began to die from the day and the enemy set up camp, there was a bit of back and forth going on the other side of the city with the usual death threats and defiance that the defenders would fight to the last breath...then a groan arose from the Alda stationed over at the city gates, as the rumour mill swept over to us.

“What’s going on?,” Fluffy asked as he looked around at the sudden grim and fearful sickened looks of the Alda on the wall – the locals had seemingly accepted the cat as a ‘throwback’ with a chronic orange hair problem, and while looked down upon, wasn’t too discriminated against.

“The Lizards are...executing the prisoners they taken,” the armsman stationed on the wall with us replied grimly, as he listened to the groans from the cat eared observers at the gates, whom were being exposed to the brutality of war where niceties such as the Geneva Conventions didn’t exist, “The scaly scum are impaling them in sight of the gates.”

Fluffy and I paused, not understanding...and then as we listened to the faint defiant yells and curses coming from the other side of the settlement – really, Tama City was just that small that you could literally yell from one side of town and be heard on the other – lapse and become blood curdling screams of some unfortunate prisoner, which trailed off into shrieks then broken wailing and begging presumably as they were made to sit on a pole and slid down it far enough that died off into incoherent tortured animal sounds...then we understood as the reptiles gave off a war cry.

“Why?,” a wide eyed Fluffy shuddered, the cat and I clenching out backsides in sympathy as another round of protesting screams of another Alda prisoner being mounted on a pole which we could hear, but not see from our side of the wall, "Why do something so sick and disgusting?"

“Psychological warfare,” Miri looked up at the setting sun a moment, then replied calmly as she noted the terrified and sickened reactions of the Alda citizens whom had been drafted up on the wall with us, “They want us up all night, listening to people screaming and dying out there knowing we’ll be next...maybe they might get lucky and make the garrison to come out and get massacred, saving them the trouble of assaulting the defences, but they’ll probably attack in the morning when we’re tired from a lack of sleep.”

“That sounds about right, Missy,” the armsman nodded grimly with pursed lips as he studied the other cat eared people on the wall with narrowed eyes, “I’d like you to back me up when the lizards attack, these spineless cretins are liable to crack under pressure.”

“Sure,” Miri replied as she listened to a new set of feminine screams on the other side of the city with a stoical frown, noting that the Alda were pretty equal opportunity types who didn't stand much on gender, that some of the captured must have been female too, “It’s my ass on the line, too.”

Fluffy and I just stared with round eyed horror at the fake cat eared redhead, not at all amused as our bowels curdled with the rise and fall of screams and despairing shrieks of the damned.

The Dau were drawing out impaling the Alda prisoners they’d taken earlier in the battle which had occurred out in the forest, and were doing it one by one in one of those cruel psychological tortures where the remaining increasingly terrified prisoners knew exactly what was in for them that some of those awaiting execution cracked under the stress and began screaming like demented cats.

The helpless despairing groans from the observing Alda on both sides of the wall came in pulses, and got softer as they watched the dwindling number of prisoners many of whom they knew personally, being put to the stake. Cruel as it sounded, the lizards weren’t impaling the prisoners they’d taken because they were evil – there was a definite rationale behind the cruelty as Miri had pointed out, and it had to do with cold blooded psychological warfare.

Contrary to popular belief, death by impalement is not a fast demise if ‘done right’ – the unfortunates would still be alive out there in front of the gates begging for someone to kill them, come morning as the shaft conveniently plugs blood loss from internal haemorrhaging.

Unlike the popular Hollywood depictions of people impaled, you don’t do it with a sharp pointy stick where a couple of muscular low browed deviant brutes shoves it up the convenient back orifice until it comes out your mouth like a pig on a spit, but a blunt pole planted in the ground which doesn’t piece any vital organs as the screaming struggling and probably weeping victim is lifted over and ever so carefully positioned, then forcefully lowered and sat onto the lubricated shaft with a few helpful downward pushes accompanied by despairing screams and shrieks for mercy, where once the orifice is sufficiently abused enough to loosen the trembling screaming victim begins to sink down from gravity far enough they can stand on their own on tip toes in a desperate and futile attempt to stave off sinking any lower.

Of course, this is an utterly futile last ditch act to prevent the inevitable at the stake, prolonging suffering as the victim’s strength slowly gives out and they begin sinking down the pole which slowly makes its way up past the guts and presses against the diaphragm – it was a very popular form of capital punishment in the middle east at one point. It probably says something that if Jesus had been born a few centuries earlier, the religious effigies of Christ would have been a great deal more wince worthy than being stretched out on a cross.

That being said, the Romans invented crucifixion because it’s a far crueller and less invasive way of extending pain and suffering because it lasts a lot longer, and there’s some faint forlorn hope on the part of the crucified that they might survive the experience that’s an extra psychological torture...buts it’s notable that even the Middle East never adopted the practice of crucifixion as it was deemed too inhumane as compared to the relative popularity of turning someone into a human shish kebab where at least the victim knows they’re dead, it just hasn’t happened yet.

Sometime in the evening, as the sun finally sank down behind the hills to the screams of tortured souls in the twilight, Fluffy cracked from the noises on the other side of the city finding fertile soil in imagination, and began clawing at the air in a frenzy with his forepaws. It’s something I’d observed him doing before, in those murky days before we’d both Awakened to our surroundings, but I’d never thought to ask him just why cats do that thing like they’re trying to dog paddle in the air – some pundits like to think they have a perfectly good rationale that their cat is stretching in an odd way...but now, I know the Truth.

“What – what are you doing?,” I asked the crazed orange cat.

“The Exit – there’s got to be a Logout button somewhere to this fucked up reality,” a round eyed Fluffy panted and clawed at the air wildly with pent up repressed energy, the tortured wails and despaired moans of the impaled filling his upright ears.

“Makes sense,” I thought as joined my cat clawing at the air in the vain hope that I might get lucky to the half lidded look of Miri and the Alda armsman whom gave us both pitying looks.

[Save Point Reached – Fluffy and Sammy suffer a psychological impairment attempting to locate the Logout Menu...Saved.]

Yes, that confirms it – there’s a Logout function somewhere on a menu, we just had to find it...

* * *


	37. Save Point Reached - Throwing rocks at lizards isn't nearly as psychotic as it sounds

..Somewhere in the Matrix...

I woke up abruptly in the corner I’d fallen asleep in after a good cry at not finding a way out of the situation, clutching my fluffy orange cat shaped comforter whom was making good reciprocal use of me as a hot water bottle against the cool night.

Never discount the psychological comfort, of a furry plush friend against the dangers which lurked out there in the dark to your healthy state of mind. It’s because Fluffy was there, that I managed to fall into a deep healing sleep despite what was going on, and wake up fresh even as my catatonic orange furred buddy stared glazed eyed into the distance from being exposed to the night time noises of this world – and the random moans and desperate pleas from the other side of Tama city for someone to put them out of their misery.

Oh, and I felt grimy all over with a furry sensation in my mouth – even more so than this morning, after dealing with the Groots. The comforts of modern life are often unappreciated, even such chores as brushing one’s teeth, until they’re gone and missed.

A good sleep and a fresh mind put things into perspective, and I felt hungry after waking up which brought my thought to our current situation.

Sieges tended to end one of three ways – you run out of food and get starved out, or the enemy runs out of food and has to go look for supplies allowing you to break the siege...or they manage to break through the defences, and you don’t have to worry about the food situation any more.

Logistic matters in a siege.

Either way, being in Tama city was not a good place to be in the long term.

I pushed Fluffy off me whom deftly rolled onto his paws, and got up from where I’d been sleeping to peer over the log ramparts into the darkness beyond. Fluffy poked his head up beside mine to have a look too...I couldn’t see anything, the fire light from the torches didn’t penetrate much more than five or so meters, which was just enough for us to see that the lizards weren’t quietly swarming in the ditch.

“Mrow...those lizards out there aren’t even bothering to take cover,” Fluffy observed dryly after a moment, “They’re just quietly sitting out there in the open, watching us.”

“I can’t see a thing out there,” I squinted into the darkness and murky shadows beyond the fire light which was probably silhouetting the Alda on the ramparts, then looked askance at the big orange furred cat whom looked right back at me speculatively...then we both looked at the pile of rocks I’d collected for my improvised sling in the event the Dau decided to come over the walls, “Oh...that’s right, you’re a cat.”

“There’s only about fifty of them out there, and I don’t imagine lizards can see in the dark too well,” Fluffy mused as he grabbed a rock from the pile with a paw, and handed it to me then peered over the top of the log ramparts again, “You start going ape slinging rocks – it’ll be just like knocking off rats in the dark.”

My Grampa says that when he was a young boy and living out in the country, he and his friends were very welcome at farms when they went ratting with spring guns, sling shots, air rifles and BB guns. The farmers in those pre-decimal days provided a bounty of 1 penny a rat and generally viewed that there was less collateral damage letting a group of kids loose on the rat population, especially around chicken farms whose rodent population was pretty endemic, than the rats were causing – note that any chickens killed or injured during the evening’s shooting, was taken out of the bounty or paid for at going rates, so there was a great deal of incentive to check targets and take care not take out any chooks least the evening become unexpectedly expensive.

You kill it, you buy it...which sort of worked out, because you got to take a dead chicken home for dinner.

I looked at the listless cat eared people on the rampart with us, noted that Miri had taken the opportunity to catch some sleep seeing as there wasn’t much else happening, then shrugged and loaded up the rock which Fluffy had given me and began twirling the sling over my head just like we’d practiced in the day, only now I couldn’t actually see anything in the dark and was totally reliant on Fluffy for aiming, “Up.”

I sort of understood Grampa when he said there was something cathartic about knocking over unsuspecting vermin the moment Fluffy responded with, “Loose.”

I let the whirring cord slip and the rock was launched into the darkness – I almost forgot to give it the telekinetic ‘push’ before the projectile disappeared into the dark, but remembered and was rewarded with ‘crack’ as the rock accelerated past the speed of sound when I handed over control over to the cat, who took over terminal guidance while I paused to await his verdict.

Thok – the faint sound of a dropped melon was heard.

“Hit – look at that brain splatter,” Fluffy observed with a shiver in his orange fur and gave me more information than I wanted, his fangs bared in a predatory fashion and bushy tail curling now he could hit back at his fears instead of just taking it, waving his right paw at me to hurry up without taking his eyes off the scene beyond the parapet, “Don’t stop throwing rocks, the lizards don’t have a clue what’s going on.”

“What are you two doing?,” Miri asked flatly after waking up to the noise we were making, looking over at us.

“Thinning out pests,” Fluffy replied as I got up to speed twirling the sling with another rock over head, “Loose.”

The straining sling slipped and launched a rock from the rotational speed, with a supersonic crack from the telekinetic push imparted to it – this time with markedly more speed as I mentally focused and flung the rock with even more momentum.

Splorsh !

The sound was quite different from the melon like ‘Thock’ sound of a rock meeting skull.

“Ewww – missed the head shot and hit low. The whole upper torso disintegrated into gooey chunky mist,” Fluffy blanched distastefully and dug his claws into the log palisade, “This is like hunting rodents with a 50 cal.”

And another lizard bought the farm in a macabre way, which lost a great deal of visual impact since I couldn’t see it in the dark.

“Never mind, you might as well continue sniping until they get wise to what’s going on,” Miri looked thoughtful as I dropped another rock into the sling and began twirling it up to speed, “If the Dau break through the front gate tomorrow, we’ll at least have an escape route out the back over the wall.”

We manage to pot 17 before the Dau noticed someone was taking them out in the dark, and amidst the screechy yells and panic as the reptilians discovered the bodies and blindly ran around trying to find out what was killing them in the night, Fluffy managed to take out three more now moving targets before the lizards wised up enough to link the ‘crack’ sounds with their friends dropping over dead, and take cover – which just made things slightly less difficult than moving targets for the cat, since it was flat fields in front of the log palisades.

Miri ran interference for us with the Alda who came to investigate the commotion, and explained what we were doing as the cat eared people watched and began cheering despite Miri’s attempts to shut them up. This pretty much gave us away, as the scaly saurians beyond the palisade were now sure there was some kind of secret weapon taking them out, and the Alda were responsible.

Another four lizards got methodically blown away amidst the panicked yells, before the survivors caught on there weren’t quite as many of them yelling, and more than a few missing voices amongst their number. Three more went down as the survivors booked it into the darkness where Fluffy’s cat night sight could no longer see them.

[Save Point Reached – Fluffy and Sammy have ranked up as an experienced sniper team...Saved.]

My arms were aching when Fluffy and I stood down for lack of visible targets.

I was curious about the carnage the cat could see beyond the log walls, but wasn’t game enough to link up with him and share his senses – that trauma could wait till the morning. The Alda on the ramparts with us gave Fluffy and I hearty thanks and some measure of morale was restored after the butt clenching wails earlier, before Miri managed to drive them off and back to their positions.

“You know,” I commented to the satisfied looking orange cat as I sat back down and massaged my sore shoulder, “I think I understand now, what that deranged Marine we saw on TV said he felt when he shot at the Viet Cong during that documentary about the Vietnam war.”

“What was that?,” Fluffy climbed onto my lap in a warm orange furred mass with an inscrutable feline smile, “Oh. Recoil.”

“Yes. That,” I nodded seriously, petting Fluffy with a frown. “I’m not feeling anything, other than my shoulder hurting. Nothing emotional, at least – I thought there would be something more to war, but it’s mostly just confusing and surreal.”

“Hmmm,” Fluffy mused thoughtfully as he scratched his chin, “Technically, you were throwing rocks while I was doing the aiming and killing. I suppose if you’re going to use the Vietnam analogy, running through a jungle spraying and praying at anything moving in the bushes, you’re probably not going to feel anything much than recoil, as opposed to the guy who’s actually aiming at someone...sort of explains the massive amounts of ammunition the trigger happy Americans went through in Vietnam, doesn’t it? Anybody they hit was pretty much accidental collateral damage, from the stuff they were indiscriminately dumping.”

The days when armies lined up in neat rows to get shot at, were lost to antiquity in an age where the weapons might be stupidly accurate, but the people aiming them were more interested in keeping the heads of the people shooting at them down long enough for them to dig holes to hide...it very much wasn’t like the movies on TV.

“Well, I suppose,” I reflected on those relatively recent documentaries about the Vietnam war, where the average American GI in Vietnam seemed to be indiscriminately blazing into jungle without even pretending to aim at anything, “So much for one shot, one kill...how do you feel about killing?”

“I’m a cat. Popping pests is second nature,” Fluffy replied with a pleased rumbling purr under the petting, “It just makes me feel hungry, speaking of which, we missed dinner. Hey, Miri, can Sam and I have a Rat Brick?”

Well, Fluffy did remind me that I was hungry as Miri took out a tube of Alteran survival ‘Rat Brick’ from the pack and put it on a spread out cloth before adding water from her canteen, which despite its derogatory descriptive name is comprised of 1cm cubes of dehydrated. Like those Warner Brothers cartoons on the morning TV, all you had to do was add water to inflate the stuff to a nutritional and delicious ‘cake’ that could sustain an adult for a day.

That hunger I’d felt after waking up hadn’t gone away after the workout throwing rocks at lizards, which I suppose is a bit psychotic if you look at things from a grownup point of view. From my perspective, it wasn’t much different than the dim pre-Awakening memories of hunting lizards in the backyard garden patch with Fluffy, though I did vaguely remember an encounter with a larger than usual lizard which I’d thrown rocks at.

I can’t remember whether I hit the giant lizard or not – probably not since my aim had been pretty lousy back then, but I don’t think I worried much about needlessly empathising with hurting a fellow creature enough to forgo dinner...You might be inclined to ask, ‘How can you eat after that?’

Well, us kids are wired that way that we just don’t dwell on troubling stuff, I guess, and I had no trouble eating cake with Fluffy after Miri divided the re-inflated Rat Brick into three portions.

[Save Point Reached – Sammy Fluffy have earned the title, ‘Hardcore’...Saved.]

War isn’t like John Wayne in those war movies on the black and white TV. It was mostly just boring, uncomfortable, inconvenient, confusing and something I’d rather not be doing with my time if I had a choice, because I’d rather not get hurt or killed far from home. Even a kid like me understands that war is something I’d rather run away from, and I hadn’t even encountered my first bully in a preschool yard yet.

It does make me wonder why it’s so popular, that grownups back home can’t seem to kick the habit.

* * *


	38. Save Point Reached - The Lull between the Screaming and Shouting

...Somewhere in the Matrix...

“Hey Miri,” I piped up as I ate delicious cake for a very late dinner – or early breakfast since there was some hint of the night sky lightening with dawn, “How come they call this delicious yummy cake a Rat Brick?”

“You ever noticed that there aren’t any rats aboard the L337?,” Miri asked in one of those stomach dropping rhetorical questions which instantly stopped Fluffy and I mid chew, which brought to mind Grampa’s morbid tales of what else might be in those mystery meat Spam tins, before continuing in a somewhat more relieving explanation, “Turns out that rodents love this stuff, so you can imagine what happens when it reinflates inside a rat. Bricking rats turned out to be so effective the rations were named after rodents, which went extinct across the Fleet.”

Fluffy and I looked at the delicious cake in a new light with a shared mental image of a hungry rat nibbling on a ‘Rat Brick’, suddenly inflating with distressed squeaks and expiring looking like a rodent soccer ball when the ‘food’ encountered sufficient moisture inside their guts. Quite suddenly, the warnings plastered all over the package of a Rat Brick about not allowing the 1cm cubes to come into accidental contact with moisture made a whole lot more sense, which is probably why they were hermetically sealed up in individual plastic and aluminium foil panels capsules like pills.

“Oh. Yeah. A Rat Bricked, just add water. That makes a great deal of sense,” Fluffy said as he stuffed another chunk of tasty moist cake into fanged mouth thoughtfully, “Delicious delicious cake, the tasty Rat Brick. Somehow, I think the brand name lacks aesthetics that would appeal to consumers.”

“I don’t know about that, people are weird,” I looked thoughtfully at the yellow cake in my hand, then bit into it and chewed thoughtfully a few moments before swallowing, “It’s a portable and non-bulky survival ration. ‘Rat Brick’ has that weird kind of ring to it which might appeal to the military and flaky survivalist types, who might want dibs on bragging about having to eat Rats out in the woods...I mean, the American military already issue C-Rats to the troops, and that’s got nothing to do with rats of the squeaky kind.”

“Hmm, good point – Humans are surprisingly gross and unclassy, though that could just be Americans in general,” Fluffy commented as Miri tuned out of the conversation upon the topic shifting to a topic of cultural paradigm Fluffy and I were more use to, “It’s not like we’re selling this stuff.”

“I know the recipe,” I commented with a sudden realisation, looking at the inflated cake on my lap, “It’s been uploaded and floating around inside my head all this time, and I never even knew it was there.”

“Oww – I hate it when information I didn’t know, just pops up,” Fluffy rubbed the flat spot between his orange furred tufted ears, “I’m surprised my peanut sized mind isn’t leaking out my ears with all the knowledge the head humper crammed in there.”

Alteran knowledge uploads could be like that – there’s a whole lot of stuff you don’t know you even had packed into your skull, until you thought about it. There are also gruesome tales of over ambitious people packing too much information into their minds and undergoing information overload, with their brains literally turning into mush when neurons self destruct with all that information stuffed into them leaking out in an uncontrolled way along with things like their sanity.

A downloaded ‘Information Meltdown’ is kind of like mental diarrhoea – the science types are still working on genetic modifications to overcome that problem, and I suppose that one day you’ll have an Alteran who will be able to retain the entire knowledge base without resembling a bulbous headed alien.

In the meantime, all you can do is purge until the amount of information equals your brain capacity to hold it, which for most Alterans is surprisingly little that educational downloads are separated into much smaller modules to limit the possibility of your mind melting down into so much biological goo – there’s really no telling whether you’ll still be you by the time that happens, leaving behind little more than a human vegetable gushing arcane knowledge in an uncontrolled mindless babble.

The trick is to receive that information in small mentally digestible chucks, and then review what’s in the modules before your neurons begin to destabilise and the information leaks away.

People – normal humans, I mean, would call that forgetting...or going senile, which having an education head humped into your skull that doesn’t take amounts to the same thing. I’ve heard it said back home that you never even use 99% of the stuff they force feed you throughout your school life, but I’m not sure the Alterans method of imprinting an education onto your neural paths under the threat of you potentially turning into a vegetable if you don’t do your homework and review hard enough, is all that much of an improvement.

“Miri, what happens now?,” I asked, nibbling on the moist Rat Brick cake, “This whole war thing is kind of boring when nothing’s happening.”

“Patience, the screaming and shouting will start up again when everyone wakes up from the trauma of taking a barge pole up the ass,” Miri replied in a sarcastic manner of a person left holding the bag, finishing off her portion of the cake, “War is like cooking with too many incompetent cooks, it doesn’t just happen overnight. It takes determination, time and patience to mess things badly enough, for things to boil over into scalding flaming disaster. The participants have to work themselves up to sticking their own hides into the burning mess, once it starts.”

I’m inclined to think that career politicians are the last people you would want anywhere near real power, and the sad current state of Earth in the 20th Century has everything to do with chronic mismanagement, incompetence and outright corruption under the politically correct terminology of ‘Statesmanship’, to dissuade the electorate from digging too deeply into the pressing question of whether the political idiots know what they’re doing.

You see, people subconsciously EXPECT politicians to be incompetent dishonest, so when their expectations are met it’s perfectly normal business s usual. Every so often, someone comes along and gets into politics with two neurons to rub together whom doesn’t know they’re suppose to lie to the masses with empty promises, and they go down in history as legendary leaders even though they’ve a functional IQ a five year old would laugh at...however, it’s when a competent non-politician comes to power and makes the political breed look bad, that the politicians tend to band together, to oust the outsider whom refuses to toe the party line least their cushy lives be disturbed by the reality the rest of the public has to deal with.

Right now, Miri’s comment on the way war was supposed to be run, made me wonder just how much the animosity between the Dau and the Alda was preventable?

I mean, impaling prisoners out in plain sight of the front gates is one of those things which can either demoralise the shit out of the defenders in Tama city – which actually did happen since all anyone could do was listen to the poor cat eared people moan and beg all through the night and dwell on their own butt clenching fate...or inspire the legendary courage of the ‘cornered rat’ because everyone knows their butts are on the line, so they might as well go down fighting with weapon in hand than suffer the fate of being shafted.

“Why?,” I frowned, absently chewing on the delicious cake with a frown, “I mean, why are the Dau fighting with the Alda in the first place? It makes about as much sense as the Arabs hating Israel so much, they’d rather die than suffer an outbreak of regional peace and prosperity after having the shit kicked out of them a few times.”

“Well, I suppose the Lebs and Palestinians believe they only have to get lucky once, to move in on Israel and kick them out despite the fact the rest of the world would have issues with that. It’s one of those dumb human tribalism things like when you keep on rooting for your footy club, despite their track record of them consistently losing and not going anywhere,” Fluffy wrinkled his nose thoughtfully as his ears rotated in thought, “It’s a mental short circuit like why some people keep voting for a political party, despite the evidence they’re going to be screwed over by the policies – when humans go tribal, they don’t have to make any sense.”

The big orange cake munching cat did have a disturbing point about the human character, we aren’t the most rational creatures that it’s a miracle we’ve managed not to nuke civilisation back into the stone age.

“Miri – why do you think the Dau are so aggro right now?,” I asked, after mulling over Fluffy’s point of the view. Hopefully, the redhead cat eared tutorial guide could cast some light on the situation, “There has to be a reason other than they were born that way because they came from the Middle East, right?”

“Conflicts are historically caused by territorial disputes, namely, there’s something valuable about a region that may be of tangible value like a resource, commodity or strategic trade route which passes through it where settlements are built to take advantage of the circumstances. Very seldom, does a large settlement of any importance arise in the middle of nowhere like in a swamp where nobody in their right mind would want to live, unless religion or politics is involved where things like common sense gets tossed out the window,” Miri lectured in tutorial mode, “Tama is called a ‘city’ because it is a citadel on top of a hill mound, not because of its population inside the walls which barely rates the name of being called a village. The lands around Tama city is comprise of bountiful fields, the citadel protects the strategic asset of food.”

Fluffy and I mused on that while eating our cake ration, having been enlightened as to why Tama City was called a ‘city’ at all. The defensive stone keep which gave Tama city its name wasn’t all that impressive, we could see it from our position and it was literally a squat round tower about ten meters in height on a small hill, with crenulated battlements which occupied one side of Tama city.

“Doesn’t make sense – why would the lizards want to take over this place for food, when they’ve got the forest?,” Fluffy asked, having come to similar conclusions. We’d discovered while wandering through the forest towards our crashed ship, there was plenty of food hanging around in the woods which could be harvested or hunted without any great difficulty, “The Dau are suppose to live on the other side of the forest. Why would they go to the trouble of coming over here right now when food is so plentiful?”

Given the bountiful fields we’d seen on our way in, Tama city was obviously established to protect the  
agriculture. Medieval existence is highly dependent on how much food was available, maybe the Dau wanted to take over Tama city because something happened to their food supplies, and they needed the food security?...Well, probably not the reason, once I thought about it some more since the forest was literally crawling with edibles.

“Now that I think about it, don’t you think it strange that everything is happening right now?,” I asked thoughtfully, “I mean, something shot us down from orbit, and it sure wasn’t the Dau or the Alda. They’re stuck in the medieval level of tech.”

“It does seem like a stretch in coincidence, doesn’t it?,” Miri asked with an ominous glance over the palisade, “The Dau seem to be in an awful hurry to get into Tama city, and while we weren’t in on the usual exchange of death threats on the other side of the city, public execution of prisoners doesn’t leave much room for negotiations as a first move.”

Fluffy and I paused eating and exchanged looks at the prospect that starvation, wasn’t the driving force pushing the Dau to march across the forest and camp outside Tama city. It also hadn’t made a whole lot of sense to impale prisoners in front of the gates on closer scrutiny, where the defenders had visual and audible reminders of what would probably happen to them if they surrendered...then again, maybe the Dau were just sufficiently pissed off enough to get some payback for all those off colour ‘Lizard on a stick’ ethnic jokes, that are probably mockingly laughed about amongst the Alda.

Dumber things have happened back on Earth – my Grampa once told me that two South American countries once went to war with each other over a soccer match, which is an interesting story to laugh at because it’s a totally moronic thing to have a temper tantrum over. Fluffy and I had believed it was just a baseless story until we looked it up in the encyclopaedia, where upon the orange cat and I gravely concluded that some ethnic groups are just genetically hardwired to be morons, and have to improve a lot just to qualify as failures as people.

“Okay, it’s too much to put our faith in people here being idiots like humans normally are back on Earth,” Fluffy stated flatly on reflecting about the historical causes of barbarian invasions on Earth, “Historically, the human nomadic tribes outside the more civilised parts of humanity, were pushed out because there were a bigger bunch of ruthless murder hobos right behind them. While humans are natural arseholes who wouldn’t think twice about slaughtering anyone and thing they came across they can’t rape or burn for the entertainment value, the Alda and Dau are aliens who don’t have a tradition taking a casual dump on their neighbours.”

“You think, maybe something’s chasing the Dau?,” I wondered morbidly, then shivered as I considered that this simulation was running an agenda which Fluffy and I only dimly understood. We were learning stuff in this 'game', and while it felt like forever with trauma and excitement thrown in, it was the kind of like being stuck in a bad dream where every moment was ‘now’, and yesterday faded into a blur without time having passed, “I don’t like where this game is going. It’s like watching a horror movie, where you know the monster is lurking behind the door.”

"We should just jump over the wall and start running while the going's good," Fluffy said as he peeked over the top of the palisades, "My animal instincts are telling me that staying put, is a bad idea."

"We should be safe behind the walls," I shook my head, and the cat fell silent.

We finished up eating as the dawn began to lighten up and we could see the off putting lumps of fallen bodies of lizard people we’d killed with my sling during night. The lightly armed and armoured Dau scouts on our side of the city were nowhere to be seen, when there was a commotion on the other side of Tama city at the gates where the Alda bigwigs were camped out.

Everyone was wide awake and on edge, when the masses of scaled Dau begin to stream past around Tama city as everyone looked on fearfully and wondered why they were moving on. There were...thousands of them, a mass migration of reptilians whom had been poised for battle this morning, and now they were bypassing Tama city altogether and heading deeper into Alda territory. There were more than enough Dau to have successfully assaulted Tama city.

The one thing you don’t do is leave an enemy stronghold to your rear.

And then the lizards were gone, moving off as fast as their legs could carry them...late in the morning, the Alda defenders cautiously opened the gates, and went to deal with the prisoners who’d been impaled out in front of the gates...when the things which had been chasing after the Dau, began shambling out of the forest. The brave souls who’d ventured out to give mercy to their impaled friends, briefly stood against the horrific new foe for a moment when a green flames washed over them.

“Okay, this is bad,” Fluffy said as he watched the gates on the other side of Tama city, spontaneously blow up and send debris flying with eerily glowing green flames splashing about like napalm, amidst the screams and cries of the unfortunate wounded who'd been over there, “I think I know what shot us down, and they’ve got green ray guns.”

Running away, seemed like an awfully good idea right now.

“The gates have fallen, retreat to the keep!,” the armsman who’d been stationed on our section of the palisade fortifications commanded, as the frightened and confused Alda began to run in the direction of the stone keep when a terrified looking Kore appeared - the other side of the city was literally a stone's throw away and she hadn't had to run all that far, the cat eared woman’s tattered, dusty and bloody appearance appeared as if she’d been standing too close to an explosion.

“RUN!,” Kore Tama shrieked with wide eyed terror of someone who’s frightened out of her wits, “FLEE! The Dead have Risen!”

Without wasting further breath, the terrified woman jumped over the palisade, and scrambled out of the ditch and began running in the direction the Dau had gone as the Alda wasted precious moments being confused at the arms woman abandoning her post.

“The Keep, head to the Keep!,” the armsman countermanded harshly and began grabbing and pushing wavering Alda, whom were obviously stressed upon encountering a situation which was alien to their experiences. The natural instinct under the circumstances, was to put a sturdier wall between one’s hide and harm’s way, so they began moving to the stone keep again.

There was a panicked mass of cat eared people running off the walls to the stone keep, now the gates were breached...and it was the wrong thing to do. The other side of Tama city was lit up with green bursts of light and explosions, and there was a great deal of yells and screams that Fluffy and I hesitated following after the Alda whom were rapidly evacuating the top of the palisades for the safety of the stone keep.

“We’re caught like rats in a trap,” Fluffy gasped as green flames began to devour the other side of Tama city, “These idiots can’t fight against ray guns with swords and arrows!”

And that killed my impulse to go with the herd and run after the cat eared people, in favour of looking in the direction of Kore whom had jumped over the log wall and was running away making incoherent animal noises despite the danger of the Dau.

It looked like a markedly better option than staying put.

“How do we get down?,” I looked over the log palisade at the bottom of the ditch. Funny how earlier the log palisade hadn’t seemed quite tall enough, now felt altogether too far to the bottom now we had to jump down it, “We can’t stay here, this place is being taken apart!”

“Up and over,” and just like that Miri picked up Fluffy and I when we hesitated, and unceremoniously tossed us both over the palisade as the cat and I screamed, before jumping over the logs into the ditch herself, “Run! We’ll worry about the details after we escape! This place has just become a giant rat trap.”

Fluffy and I began to complain to Miri, but before we could begin we ducked as the creepy green flames lit the parapet overhead where we’d been standing with an explosion.

The three of us just shut up and ran after Kore of Tama’s undignified cowardly example, as screams and blasts of green flames washed over the supposed safety of Tama city’s walls behind us. It was now apparent just why the Dau wanted in on the supposed safety of the city's walls so badly. Since the Alda were concerned with keeping the lizards outside, it had pretty much been a death sentence so they'd returned the favour with executing the prisoners they'd captured and were intending to use as bargaining chips.

Medieval negotiating methods are just brutal that way.

We’d encountered the enemy, and they were all the more enigmatic and frightening because other than the green flame throwers and ray guns lighting up the city behind us, we still didn’t know what the new aggressors looked like.

[Save Point Reached – Sammy and Fluffy have escaped the Fall of Tama City...Saved.]

There’s such a thing, as having too much realism in a game, which has totally captured your attention...

* * *


	39. Time Flies, and then you Log Out to Reality

...Australia...Earth...1974...

The pitter patter of little feet came to a stop in front of the Sung household’s front door under a small porch constructed of brown brick like the rest of the house. The unconventional if cosy front door offering shelter from the elements, was a little unusual in that it was located on the left side of the house and conveniently facing the driveway. The design catered to a sedentary lifestyle as one could simply leave the car parked within convenient walk of the front door, instead of having to drive all the way down to the garage in the backyard to park it under cover.

“Hellooo? Can I play with Sammy and Fluffy?,” the cute little blonde owner embracing the writhing tentacle Cosmic Horror to her flat childish chest, piped up in a uncertain squeaky voice that nobody was home after telling her parents she was coming over to the neighbour’s place to play.

Bethany Stewart had tried the kitchen backdoor on the other side of the house, but unlike the day previous when she and her friends had come to play, the wooden lattice gate down the side passage to the kitchen had been shut so she’d gone around to the front door with Groo the Slug clutched in her arms to seek out her friends next door.

There was a pause, then the front door ominously swung open on its own volition without motivation of human hands, the interior beckoned in that welcoming way some houses do, like it had a warm homey household spirit looking out for everyone within.

Bethany giggled as she skipped over the threshold with Groo the Slug in her arms, Sammy’s house was a little funny that way – it was haunted, though not by scary ghosts but funny Squishy creatures. They might have been scary except Bethany had already met Snarf the Wombat and Squee the Spider under friendly circumstances, and it was difficult to feel scared of her own Groo the Slug whom was a Squishy too...the door eased shut without the theatrical squeaks and creaks, and the unfazed green eyed little blonde proceeded to Sammy and Fluffy’s bedroom without a backwards glance now she was inside the house.

The Sung household was a little odd, like the builders had gotten the architect’s plans wrong and turned it 90 degrees from the direction it was supposed to be facing before anyone caught the error, then improvised rather than knock it down and build it the way the plan was supposed to have been. Sammy’s bedroom was located at the front of the house with a totally superfluous stone walled ground floor balcony facing towards the street, which the young Asian boy had advised was much more fun climbing over after seeing his cat Fluffy habitually taking that route to the bedroom from the front lawn.

The bedroom door opened when she got to the bedroom, and the blonde little girl walked in...then stopped at the scene of a crime...the bedroom was a mess, magazines and books were stacked everywhere but there was an order to the chaos.

Not for the first time since she'd been let in on the Big Secret, Bethany wondered just how strange her neighbours really were, as giant pillow sized grey furred spiders with stacks of magazines and books balanced precariously on their backs, scuttled out from under the shadowy depths of Sammy’s bed to deposit their paper cargo on the parquetry floor, where groups of wombats incongruously wearing academic mortar boards and scholastic capes sat before numerous anachronistic see through holographic windows suspended in the air which they were punching information into from the books they were reading from the piles around them.

Small mouse sized mini-Groos like the parental one she held in her arms were moving around the cluttered floor amidst the piles of magazines they were evidently sorting out the already studied media into separate piles for the spiders to pick up...the miniature mortar boards and capes which emulated their much larger wombat counterparts looked even more weird on slugs as they glided around the floor.

The giant spider’s many legs dispensed the load of books onto the piles next to the scholastic wombats before picking up the ones which had been sorted out by the slugs and viewed, then placing them onto the spider’s back without even bothering to stop in a biological conveyor belt like fashion as it moved around the scholarly reading wombats, making a U-turn and scuttled off and back past a bemused Bethany under the bed to where ever it was suppose to go.

Bethany snorted out the breath she'd been holding, then turned her attention to the semi-conscious eyes blankly staring and drooling Asian boy with his orange pet cat sprawled on the bed. The big fluffy orange cat was draped across Sammy’s stomach in that boneless fashion only cats seemed to manage, his mouth parted slackly to reveal fangs in what felt like a feline scream of horror that was matched by Sammy’s blankly staring face.

Floating in defiance of gravity above the cat and boy, was a big jelly fish like creature the size of a sofa, whose tentacle filaments were hooked into their heads and pulsing flashes of light where the two beneath it quivered periodically indicating they were still alive. Bethany wondered who the new Squishy was and what it was called, and after watching it a few moments decided to call it ‘Brain’.

“Hmmm,” Bethany hummed as she walked up to the beside of her two friends and cocked her head thoughtfully at the floating brain Squishy monster, which on second thoughts looked like one of those jelly fish called a Portuguese man of war. The young blonde directed her attention back to the Asian boy cat whose eyes were open and staring blankly into infinity, “Hello ? Sammy ?...Fluffy ??...Anyone home ???”

No response was evident as Bethany moved around the table to the boy and cat, noting the mini-Groo, Snarfs and Squees were indifferent to her presence as she waved her hands in front of the catatonic unresponsive boy and cat, Bethany noted the oddball creatures on and around the room momentarily break pace with what they were doing.

After moment, Bethany nudged the cat, “Wake uuuup.”

Then she nudged Sammy, “It's meee, Bet.”

Then she poked a bit more forcefully in annoyance, “I wanna play too !”

Poke poke...pokepokepokepoke.

Bethany frowned and jumped back as cat and boy lying across each other in an X, spasmed from her prodding, sending a corresponding reactions to the non-humans around the room whom abruptly stopped their activities to glare at her. Agitated flashes of coloured light rippled inside Brain like twinkly Christmas lights, before settling down to more dim rhythmic pulses.

Multiple wombat “Snarf !” exclamations and sluggy “Groo ?” and “Squee?!?” exploded in a cacophony of alien monstrous queries, that Bethany felt very self conscious like that time she’d first visited the local municipal library. Sure there were lots of interesting picture books there, but the people there didn’t like it when she ran around looking for now stories and picture books with gushy squeaky excitement for her mother to read to her.

Beady wombat and spider eyes, and those mounted on tiny sluggy eyestalks stared at her, as Bethany squeezed Groo tightly and rethought her intention of waking up Sammy and Fluffy to play, before summoning her courage and changed her plans with a bright little girl smile, “Can I read a book too?”

The Squishies went back to reading and doing their arcane things, waving their consent with various appendages so Bethany approached the nearest stack of thin colourful big format books with interesting big pictures on the covers – now, the colourful covers of monsters and other creatures probably would have cautioned an adult, but a child’s mind is wired a little different that Bethany just saw ‘colourful pretty’ Squishy type monsters just like the ones scuttling about in the room. Bethany was by no means literate as her mother was only beginning to teach her how to read from the story books, but the little blonde girl could at least sound out her ABCs to get a gist of the easier words.

Quite naturally, the little girl picked out books with an interesting picture on the covers that were nothing like she’d ever seen before. There were lots and lots of difficult words, but also very interesting glossy pictures that Bethany soon found herself lying down on her tummy alongside Groo, chatting about the pictures in the books she’d appropriated to her Familiar whom was amicably feeding off her impressions and relaying her thoughts to the rest of the Squishy hivemind.

The first book was happily skimmed though, and there were lots of pictures which reminded her of her father’s stories about Vietnam, except the soldiers were space soldiers in colourful armour – and there were lots of toy space soldiers of all kind of different shapes and sizes in the pictures fighting in castles and other fantastic landscape. The pictures were like nothing Bethany had ever seen before even in the library, and she didn’t even pretend to read as she chatted with Groo about the space army men who were depicted fighting all kinds of interesting monsters in the pictures.

It was very very captivating to a little girl’s imagination which she immediately latched onto as her mother often read fables about knights and adventures at bedtime to her that proved to be fertile Squishy fodder. Had Bethany been old enough to read, she might have noticed the oddity of the Games Workshop 2017 Copyright on the inside cover of the book, which would have brought up disturbing questions as to not only ‘when’ the book had originated, but which timeline it had come from, but the little girl was more than happy to lay eyes on the fantastic colourful pictures.

“A – eeh, Llllll...Ddd...aaah, rrrr...Alddaaa?,” Bethany frowned as she strenuously sounded out the letters of the title on the cover of the next ‘book’, whose picture of an elf in strange looking armour had caught her attention, “Hey, doesn’t this look a little like Fluffy, Groo? It’s the eyes, but the pointy ears are in the wrong place, they should be on top of the head, hmmm?”

“Groo,” the plush slug replied, sending its impressions to the rest of the studiously studying Squishy conglomerate whom noted the suggestion from ‘Sourcebook Bethany’...and approved of he change as the little girl happily flicked through the Role Playing Game manual at the interesting pictures, before opening another ‘book’ with a much simpler spelling.

“Tehh, Aaah, Uuhh...taaahh...Daa – daaa – ooh...Dau?,” Bethany frown in concentration as she sounded out the surprisingly difficult title, flicking through the pages of odd looking noseless monster people and others whom looked markedly different as to be a different species altogether, Bethany summarised her impression, “Lizard people – hmmm, they should be more scaly – like the little ones in the garden. What do you think, Groo?”

“Groo,” the plush slug responded, and the Squishies adapted to the suggestion.

The little girl kicked her feet to and fro as she flicked through the pages of the RPG manual, looking at pretty pictures and chatting to her inhuman companion whom was relaying the opinions and suggestions to the Squishy gathering of minds, before picking out a book with a scary looking skeleton on the cover.

“Neh Ehh, kkk...Khah? Rrr, ooh, Nnnss...Neko-rons,” Bethany looked thoughtful, as she opened the book and began leafing through to examine the pictures of the mechanical skeleton people. There was something dark and ominous about the Neko-rons until Bethany found a picture of one of the skeleton people with what looked like a pair of square blocky ears atop its head similar to what she’d imagined of the cat eared Alda...and then it wasn’t nearly so scary anymore, “The Neko-rons should all have square ears like that, instead of triangle cat ears like the Alda, huh Groo?”

“Groo,” the slug bobbed its eyes stalks agreeably.

After a few more moments of looking through the pictures, Bethany got bored and mildly irritated that Fluffy and Sammy whom were plugged into the jellyfish monsters floating above their heads, still hadn’t woken up. Pictures were nice and all, but without a story to go with them, it lost a lot of impact – just who was fighting who, and what were they fighting for? Was one side just being mean, or was there something else going on??

Bethany closed the book on Neko-rons, got up off her tummy and dusted herself off with a glance at the big orange cat and the Asian boy again, and pouted as she picked up the slug shaped Cosmic Horror, “I want to play with Fluffy and Sammy. Why aren’t they waking up? I want to play witches and practice magic with them – and maybe play with army men too.”

It’s a myth that all girls like playing with dolls – some like playing with toy soldiers too, though they’d rather burn in Hell than admit to such an unfeminine past time to their more indoctrinated peers. Bethany had been brought up on tales of his father’s time in the SASR, and was somewhat naturally inclined towards laying her hot little hands on her father’s collection of model army miniatures than the usual girlish tendency to more feminine toys.

The Snarfs, Squees and Groos collectively shuddered in front of their holographic display terminals as Groo the Slug sent the gist of Bethany’s feelings to the collective hive mind.

There was a pause, then the parquetry of the bedroom was replaced by...a miniature landscape...a very detailed miniature landscape, which Bethany towered over like a giant Godzilla. Bethany sucked in her breath as she felt a sudden fright at the prospect of stepping somewhere she shouldn’t, then took a closer look at the enchantingly detailed the scenery as she realised there were tiny people...no, there were cat eared Alda, reptilian Dau and squared eared Neko-rons wandering around underneath the green canopy of miniature trees and going about their lives.

A pair of odd looking multisided dice clattered at Bethany’s feet, and came to a stop at the toes of her pink patent leather shoes.

The Squishies looked at her expectantly, and for a moment Bethany thought she saw red glows behind their eyes, before she crouched and picked up the dice.

“Um...you want me to play?,” Bethany asked uncertainly, dice in tiny hot little hands, waiting to cast the fate of the world she towered over like a small blonde childish four year old goddess, to the urgings of the Snarfs, Squees and Groos of the onlooking Elder Abominations...

* * *

The autonomously acting Alteran nanite community had a problem.

Despite continued efforts to locate and connect to a viable database, there had been a singular lack of success.

The lack of educational source material had held up the ability to train the two newly minted proto-Alterans, a quandary which was deemed to significantly lessen the survivability of the two proto-Alterans in the face of whatever had evidently wiped out the galaxies spanning Humanitae civilisation.

There was, however, an alternative source of information in the form of the regressed ‘Ascended’ entities whom were hanging around the Sung household, sponging off the two proto-Alterans.

There was a bit of back and forth before the ‘Squishies’ grasped the request for an alternate information source from them...for some odd reason, the Squishies failed to distinguish between fiction and reality, not that it made much of a difference since the otherwise fictional ‘background histories’ were appropriately fleshed out with quite viable technologies from realms better left unmentioned, which while not ‘Alteran’, were at least better than the primitive forms currently available on 1970s era Earth.

Sources were procured from the Squishies and utilised on a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ basis, as long as the sciences were workable and sound. The combat nanites were pragmatic in the face of expediency – better a flawed workable solution today, than a nicely specified tried and true Alteran approved educational solution tomorrow which would come too late to do any good.

The new proto-Alterans were subjected to training simulations intended to enhance their survivability in an uncertain world bereft of the Humanitae...and if the variable of a wide green eyed excited four year old little blonde girl wanted to throw a few dice around to add a bit of excitement, well, it wasn’t like things could go more wrong in the absence of an approved Humanitae database to consult, containing the approved training and educational protocols...

* * *

“...whoosh, whoosh, the little ship went up and down the waves in the bad storm,” Bethany narrated as the miniature ‘pretend’ waves crashed against her hips without any effect whatsoever, imparting no force or cold to her child’s body as she ‘waded’ through the circular patch of sea the Squishies monsters in Sammy and Fluffy’s bedroom were gathered around, “The big storm crashed into and over the little ship, sinking beneath the big angry waves and popping up like a – a...um, a bath toy ducky.”

The intricate ‘toy’ sailing boat the size of a bath toy with little miniature half drowned cat eared people scrambling about its sodden wooden decks bounced up and down the waves, every so often sinking beneath them in the gale blowing lashing waves that were as tall as the ship’s mast crashing over it to the young green eyed little blonde’s fascination.

“Whoosh, whoosh, the teeny tiny sailors bravely struggled against the big crashy waves trying to sink the brave little boat,” Bethany made exaggerated sinuous up and down motions with her left hand, which seemed to encourage the magnitude of the waves trying to swamp the boat under and sink it. The engrossed little girl paused as stopped narrating, then tossed the magic multisided dice clutched in her right hand to find out what would happen next...the dice sank under the angry roiling waves, then the sea swallowed up the struggling little boat and broken little wooden wreckage and flotsam bobbed to the surface.

Bethany waded over and peered at the desperate tiny drowned figures clinging to the wreckage with a disappointed pout of a child whose toy had broken, “Oh...it sank.”

She fished around under the ‘raging sea’ for the dice a moment like digging for miniature crabs or shells at the beach, then straightened with the multisided dice in hand as the stormy waters calmed and became placid ‘after’ the storm her magic dice had cast earlier in the fun adventurous game had passed on and faded away to leave behind three figures washed lifelessly up on a beach.

A miniature drowned cat and little Asian boy on a beach with the sea washing up and around them with a cat eared redhead woman who was Bethany’s avatar modelled somewhat on her mother’s appearance, whom was Fluffy and Sammy’s ever present guide in the miniature pretend world.

Bethany pursed her lips as she peered down at the three lifeless figures on the beach, and spoke the magical words which would resume the fun adventurous game she’d been playing all morning, “Respawn.”

And just like that, the cat eared redhead woman Miri with the miniature Sammy and Fluffy on the beach coughed up the water they’d swallowed, and began weakly crawling up the sandy beach up onto land.

“Oh, Sammy and Fluffy have survived the sinking boat and crawl up the beach with Miri,” Bethany narrated what she was looking at, but before she could continue further, her stomach growled from the long hours of playing the game which had totally captured her attention. The little blonde girl frowned at the dice she’d recovered, then at the Squishies surrounding the patch of miniature reality she was standing in, “Um – I’m hungry, can you start up time again and let us go have something to eat?”

“Snarf??,” the cluster of academic clad wombats protested.

“Groo!!,” Groo and its mortar board hated miniature minions waved tentacles in favour of Bethany’s suggestion.

“Squee,” the spiders broke the tie breaker, and waved its claws as the web holding time in check began to dissolve.

On the beach, a glowing ‘Logout’ notice appeared, which the miniature Fluffy and Sammy stared blankly at in disbelief after long moments before both lunged at the floating blue Logout icon.

And then, the clock on the bedside which had been frozen ever since Bethany had began playing the fun and strange game, began to tick once more as ‘reality’ resumed and the patch of gamer world began to shrink and dissolve away.

* * *

The nanites running Simulation were satisfied with the progress that had been made with the Soure Material which had been provided by the regressed Ascended whom had been quite happy to ‘Feed’ on the emotional distress of the boy and his cat on their training session, and deemed that further unconventional educational and vocational training would be detrimental in light of the biological limitations of a developing four year old’s and feline mind.

Too much Sim Time could be counterproductive, and so the boy and his cat were allowed to log out and recuperate biological functions and resources which had been expended in the training...until the next Simulation session.

There were still other modules which had been selected, that hadn’t been touched yet, after all.

* * *

The floating Portuguese man of war Squishy monster withdrew its tentacle filaments from the heads of Sammy and Fluffy, and began oozing back into the ether from whence it and Squishykind came, a somewhat off putting sight which Bethany peripherally noted looked like layers of biological material were gradually fading into nothing and revealing glistening organic internal organs before they melted away and vanished too.

Not something which you'd really want to see on a full stomach.

Boy and cat were still for long moments, then Bethany noted the fluttering of eyelids attempting to lubricate eyes which had been staring altogether too long into blank infinity as breathing quickened with a sudden twin gasps from human and feline throats as they sat up in bed.

The cat was the first to speak, wailing in high pitched feline distress as he got up on shaking paws and stumbled from his spot on the boy's stomach, “My – my mind feels a great paaaain !”

“Ow, ow damnit...an open mind is like a fortress...with its gates unbarred and unguarded,” Sammy croaked hoarsely between gasps as he clutched his head and slumped forward with his head on his knees, then groaned while the cat hastily vacated its perch sprawled across his stomach, “Hope...the first step to disappointment...are we really out of that Sim? After all this time??”

“Feeding time is over, meow,” the cat weakly crawled up over the boy and onto the table and sprawled down weakly on its side where he quivered feebly, “Do you hear the voices too ? We need a new navigator, this cat is drowned. Mrow.”

“Sanity is for the weak, Cat,” a traumatised Sammy muttered, clutching his head as the information from the simulation hammered inside his skull, “Doubt is a sign of weakness, there's nothing to fear but failure. Knowledge is power, guard it well...we – where are we?”

“A small mind is a tidy mind,” Fluffy mewed piteously as spasmed on the bed, his paws making running motions as if trying to escape something that threatened to overwhelm his sanity, “And mine's the size of peanut – Saaaaam, my brain hurts !”

“Are you okay ? Do you need me to get my Mom and call a doctor?,” a wide green eyed gushy Bethany helpfully volunteered as she looked back and forth between her two best friends. The Squishies in question around the room whom were making negative noises to the query, while waving claws, paws and tentacle appendages that they were all just fine, “Oh. Okay, not a good idea to reveal Witch business to the adults, huh? What were your dreaming about?”

Sammy and Fluffy quivered as Bethany helpfully rubbed and patted both their backs – it was a bit like petting a furry animal, but more sympathetic and different somehow.

“In the grim darkness of the future, there is only war,” Sammy stated ominously from his slumped over foetal position on the bed, “I think...that can’t possibly have been the future. It’s too stupid!”

“You sound Craaazy,” an amused Bethany sang warningly, she grabbed a handful of Sammy hair and forcibly lifted the boy's head up in a piercing no non-sense tone only a curious four year old little girl could manage, “Hey, I was playing with the Squishies all morning while you were sleeping. What was that Brain Squishy you were plugged into doing?”

“Nothing, nothing – exploring a possible future...or maybe that was a distant past?,” Sammy frowned at the reference Bethany had made to a ‘Brain’ Squishy, then shook his head dismissively as he gingerly examined the information and experiences in his head, “Maybe.”

Fluffy lifted his head as the pounding headache of information sorted itself out in his now conscious mind, “Or we got trapped as sprites in a Dawn of War multiplayer sim...just saying, the mindless brutality and suffering of grinding against stupidly powerful killbots like the Nekorons.”

Bethany twitched at the familiar name, and briefly glanced at the spiders, wombats and slugs as they discretely ditched their academic costumes and cleared the stacks of interesting books from the room, then back at an oblivious Sammy and Fluffy again as she got the sensation she was being hung out to dry by the eldritch supernatural mob whom were quietly slithering and creeping away.

“Oh yeah ? Then how do I know how to build a lasgun ?,” Sammy's frown deepened as his conscious mind absorbed the simulated experiences, “Or make Kaskrin battle armour ? Come to think of it, I could probably put together a plasma fusion generator? Or know the ingredients of a Rat Brick??”

“Oh,” Fluffy blinked a couple of times as he shook himself in a doglike fashion, and stretched with a feline grimace as he blinked at his familiar surroundings like he hadn’t seen it in the longest while, “And I know how to program – fat lot of good that’ll do with the clunky mainframes that are state of the art in the 70s. I’ve got so much information crammed into my skull, it feels like it’s going to leak out...what Happened to us, is this some sick and twisted fantasy, and we’re still stuck in the Sim?”

“Hell no...er, I don't think so. Bethany doesn’t have cat ears like an Alda, and there aren’t any lizard people trying to shish kebab us on a stick,” Sammy brushed Bethany's stilled twitching hand away, “This...is real, it ‘feels’ real. We’re back home...I think.”

“Well, it’s better than getting a pole shoved up your ass or being slaughtered by unrelenting mechanical monsters,” Fluffy commented with a paranoid shuddered.

Bethany kept her mouth shut – maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to prop up those miniature Alda on sticks. She’d gotten a little carried away listening to the squeaky noises they’d made, outside the scale model castle the Dau were about to attack to seek refuge in because of the Neko-rons chasing them – oh, and the Nekorons over running the Alda that everyone had to flee on the boat which had a flick of fate’s dice had sunk in a storm, “Eheh-heh.”

“Hmmm – it smells real too,” Fluffy sniffed and looked suspiciously at the wombats and slugs around the table whom had mysteriously discarded the academic mortar boards and scholar capes they'd been wearing but a moment ago. The piles of books on the table had also vanished as well, leaving no incriminating evidence of what had been going on in the background while boy and cat had been battling for their sanity on the battlegrounds of some futuristic computer generated war zone, “How long were we gone?”

“Um, did you go somewhere?,” Bethany asked uncertainly with feigned wide eyed ignorance, “I came here to play Witches with you like yesterday.”

Fluffy and Sammy blinked, “Yesterday?!?”

“It – it felt like we were stuck in that Sim forever,” Sammy shook his head, “At least a year.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Bethany hummed affirmatively as she rocked back and forth on her feet with a nod, finally understanding her mother’s wisdom that there were some things a girl shouldn’t tell a boy if they wanted to stay friends, “Time passes fast while you’re dreaming, huh?”

Fluffy and Sammy looked suspiciously at the innocently smiling little blonde girl from next door, having gotten the sensation that there was a lot the girl wasn’t saying...though what, neither could say. It wasn’t like Bethany held any power over what they’d been through, after all...very discretely, Bethany slipped the pair of multisided dice into her dress pocket.

“It...it was just a game,” Sammy said after sucking in a deep shuddering breath a long moment at the dreamlike memories of the horrors he and Fluffy and been exposed to, “Just a game.”

And then the psychological traumas hit as the boy’s four year old body began trembling with the pent up need to react in response to the bottled up emotions which had thus far been held in check from the shock of waking up to the real world.

“Waaaaah,” Sammy spontaneously burst out into tears.

Fluffy began to tremble too, “Waaaaaah!”

Bethany watched the two crying, then her green eyes began to tear up, “Waaaaah!”

Grampa Sung came to check on the commotion, to find the neighbour’s daughter had gotten into the house while he’d been sleeping, and was wailing away clutching Groo the Slug with his grandson Sammy whom was clinging onto Fluffy over some upset.

Kids.

* * *


	40. A carefree childhood is filled with narrowly missed hidden perils

...Australia...Earth...1974...

There was a certain oddly warm kind of happiness, watching my neighbour Bethany happily eat the yum cha breakfast Grampa had steamed for us in the bamboo steamers, hot from the kitchen. Har Gow prawn dumplings, Siu Mai pork dumplings with the little diced carrot on top, steamed Dim Sum style beef meat balls, and the ubiquitous steamed Char Siu Bao bun with savoury BBQ pork filling with a helping of Chinese tea to help wash it down.

“Um Cha, Yum Cha, one for you, one for me, one for you, two for mee,” Bethany sang as she kicked her feet under the table and nibbled on the rapidly shrinking dim sum impaled on her fork that was switched back and forth, as she teasingly pretended to feed Groo whom snapped his mouth shut on emptiness as the little blonde snatched the food away. 

Fluffy and I watched Bethany happily stuffing her face with cheeks bulging as she chewed and swallowed and stab another pork dumpling to begin the game with her sock slug Familiar anew, bringing to mind a picture of a cute beady eyed hamster I’d seen somewhere with chubby cheeks stuffed full of nuts. 

“Um, you really should tease the elder slug shaped Lovecraftian horror like that,” a wary Fluffy suggested as the now quite perceptible warmth from the furred slug began to steam perceptibly with wisps of visible vapour rising from its blue and yellow striped pelt, when a giggling Bethany snatched the dumpling away from the slug’s bite again and popped it into her own mouth.

“You want to have some, Groo?,” Bethany asked her familiar, holding out a fresh prawn dumpling on her fork to Groo the Slug – whom lunged forth with mouth open, only this time Bethany didn’t pull back when the sock slug’s mouth snapped shut around the fork with a weird metallic ‘ting’ sound. Bethany looked at the stub of the metal fork she was left holding as the slug monster determinedly chewed with disturbing metallic grinding crunching sounds, and swallowed without any signs of distress as the eye stalks glared at the girl, “Oh.”

The four year old blonde little girl looked perplexed at what to do next, now she was deprived of her fork and looked about to break out in tears as her chin quivered from the upset of having been deprived her fork.

I still don’t know what got her so upset and set her off this morning when Fluffy and I felt so relieved the nightmare had ended and we were finally outside the simulation, but I suppose girls are just delicate that way from the stuff Fluffy and I have read of the gender. It wasn’t like we’d met any girls before Bethany, and her friends seem to be opportunists who’d take your lunch, and act like they’re doing you a favour while they’re mooching off you...girls are just, you know, complicated.

“Here, use these,” I handed Bethany a spare pair of chopsticks.

After a perplexed moment watching Fluffy and I deftly use our chopsticks, the little blonde barbarian ignorant of chopstick etiquette, gave up trying to copy us, and used the chopsticks to stab a dumpling with a giggle as an improvised fork. She awkwardly resumed eating while petulantly ignoring Groo whom was pointing demandingly at its open mouth with a pseudopod.

Well, my Mom always chided me that only children used chopsticks like that, and my neighbour probably didn’t know any better so I suppose Bethany had a good excuse for the uncouth table manners.

“Yummy,” Bethany said with half lidded satisfaction at her Familiar, making a show of wrapping her mouth around the pork dumpling, then sucking it off the chopstick in an exaggerated manner. After a few moments of trying to pretend nothing was wrong, the wide eyed blonde realised she’d bitten off too much and began choking with her mouth too full to chew properly, which is probably why your parents tell you to take small bites, chew your food and not play with it.

After Groo applied some slobbering mouth to mouth, a chastened and tearful Bethany stopped showing off so smugly after clobbering her familiar, then settled down to finish breakfast whilst the big unrepentant blue and yellow demonic slug with an exaggerated lump on it’s head made a disgusting show of licking its slobbering maw.

Hitting a Squishy has about as much effect as kicking a brick – they just don’t take any physical damage worth mentioning, and all you get out of it is the pain of a sore foot from trying. I suppose it has a childish psychological benefit like punching a stuffed toy to vent your anger, though I wouldn’t know about that kind of thing on account of my parents being too cheap to buy me one, and I had to settle for a grumpy orange cat instead who’s got the strange idea I’m his personal hot water bottle.

After we finished breakfast, Bethany and I went out to play the kind of games two kids, a talking cat and an elder sluglike abomination from a Lovecraftian horror would find interesting...

* * *

Children my age exist in an odd moment of eternal ‘now’.

Adults seem to interpret the condition as a short attention span, and a lack of reflection on perceived rights or wrongs like they would apply to a fellow adult, where it’s really just nature’s way of letting us kids survive the rigors of childhood without too much psychological trauma from the experience.

For instance, I remembered the whole business of being stuck in a dream of a simulated year in a dystopian science fiction simulation just this morning, running for my life with my cat shaped childhood friend from an implacable army of undead mechanical monstrosities in an odd kind of ‘this feels like a nightmare which probably would have given a grownup a case of PTSD...but I’m not feeling as scared as I think I would be if it were real’ kind of way which quite frankly felt like I was just going through the motions, much like playing a game.

I mean, much as I like to rationalise killing a sentient being out of necessity to save myself, even a simulated one, with the kind of callous disregard as killing a lizard or bug I’d caught in the garden...truth is, I don’t think I’d actually do that in real life on account of there being a whole lot of associated cultural taboos and emotional baggage.

It’s why I could just shelve the whole troubling simulated reality experience as a bad dream once Fluffy and I were free of it, and go out to the backyard and play with my neighbour Bethany after breakfast. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten, it’s just that it wasn’t relevant ‘Right Now’ in much the same way I’d been wondering what Bethany had been doing in my bedroom this morning, or why she’d started crying all of a sudden when the absentee emotional impact we’d experiencing in a very remote fashion in our simulated dream state, suddenly dropped on us like a brick once we woke up.

Crying without good cause is probably one of those girl things, like how Fluffy and I had been morbidly horrified to discover Bethany’s missing those boy parts, when she’d first climbed into the bath with us with an eye to helping me ‘wash’ the big orange cat who habitually shared the bath tub...I mean, Fluffy and I both thought she’d been neutered until the difference between girls and boys was clarified, where upon it still felt decidedly uncomfortable to dwell on, but at least a little less freaky in terms of she hadn’t gotten it snipped off at the vet.

Anyway, full stomach and content as only carefree children can be without the turmoil of adult worries troubling us, Fluffy and I had a few plans on how to make some quick money based on the knowledge and ideas we’d been exposed to during our morning nightmare, and Bethany was filled with wide green eyed curiosity as to what fascinating new game we were going to play next...

* * *

Bethany leaned against the parked Landrover, unmindful of the dirt transferred to her sundress as she watched with excited green eyes at her neighbours doing new exciting magic things. The crude looking metallic Lego bug the young blonde had been watching take shape under the intense concentration of Sammy, looked like something she could build herself with the yellow and red plastic bricks she had in her toy box – but the metal bug wasn’t only the obvious tangible result of the magic, there was much more to it that wasn’t so visible.

Sammy was currently focused on ‘feeding’ a regulated stream of blue tinted energy to the interesting glowing square patches of intricate linked designs pulsing on the floor of the garage, which the Asian boy and his cat had spent most of the morning dancing back and forth scrawling, before being satisfied with their work to begin with the light show.

“...@EchO OFf, CD %1, eCHo, C:\BAtCh\ DR...,” the cat sang, chanting the spell that was being imprinted onto the metal Lego bug which had once been a tin of rusty nails, mouldering away in a corner of the garage before Sammy and Fluffy had appropriated it for their own arcane uses, “...@EChO OfF, EchO, IF ‘%1’ == ‘’ XCoPy B:\\*.*, IF nOt ‘%1’ == ‘’XCopY B:\%1, eCHO, C:\Batch\ DR...”  
The big orange cat was currently busy singing an oddly understandable English, if ultimately nonsensical spell which Bethany listened to while the bulk of her attention was focused on watching the big orange fluffy cat as he stood on his short hind legs, swayed with paws outstretched with head thrown back, and wailing away in his high pitched catty singing voice.  
Sammy and Fluffy had said that sufficiently advanced ‘magic’, is indistinguishable from science once you understood the ground ‘Cause and Effect’ ground rules as to how it worked. Bethany didn’t pretend to understand what an ‘integrated circuit’ or ‘software programming’ was, but she did manage to grasp that it had something to do with an ‘advanced magic spell’ which the two were bent on using to make a...well, it looked like a Potato sized metal Lego bug.

One by one, the square patches of glowing ‘IC Magic’ winked out as it transferred into the Lego bug which twitched at the new set of programming inputs...until the inside of the garage was bereft of the unnatural blue glow, lit only by the sunlight streaming through the windows coming from outside.

Sammy and Fluffy sighed and exchanged looks as Bethany perked up in the silence.

“Execute,” Fluffy and Sammy solemnly intoned together, the Asian boy’s dry squeaky voice speaking for the first time in hours.

The Lego bug twitched upon the golem’s irst power up, its blocky antennae twitching back and forth like a pair of windscreen wipers before sensing a concentration of nearby raw materials...then leapt forth as it scuttled to the Landrover parked in the garage, which an unsuspecting Bethany was leaning against.

“Ahh!,” Fluffy and Sammy shouted as the bug scuttled to the largest concentration of ‘refined’ metal to fulfil its programmed intentions of collecting and replicating.

“Ahh?,” a startled Bethany jumped at the outburst from the two from where she’d been leaning against the Landrover most of the morning, stumbling into the path of the scuttling Lego bug.

The shiny Lego bug paused, then hissed menacingly as it reared up on its four hind mechanical legs while splaying its front two limbs as the bright blue glow of its internal micro-fusion reactor began to fire up with intensified energy demand for the purpose of resource gathering. The unsuspecting green eyed little blonde clutched the blue and yellow sock slug to her chest, at the first inkling that something might not be right.

From the Lego bug’s perspective, the organic ‘blob’ its primitive sensors had detected was an obstacle standing between it, and the big juicy pile of semi-refined metals which its core programming as a ‘Resource Gatherer’ had identified as suitable for refining into metal bricks and ‘cloning’ more of itself in order to gather more designated resources.

“NOOoooo!,” Fluffy and Sammy yelled as the bug’s integrated onboard plasma cutter and smelter fired up with an ominous hiss at a wide round eyed Bethany, Groo the Slug and the Landrover behind them.

CRUNCH

The sound was like a truck had run over a steel beer can as something dropped down from the rafters.

“Squee?,” the giant grey arachnid poked at the flattened pieces of metal Lego bug it had pounced on upon it detecting the sudden alarmed psychic spike from Sammy and Fluffy which designated the odd metal insect golem had been put on the ‘edibles’ list. 

The logic that Squee shouldn’t have had enough mass to squash the Lego bug like a – well, bug, being belied by the fact that the Lovecraftian horror defied physics on a regular basis that hardly anyone questioned the cause and effect relationship anymore. 

“Oh,” Bethany frowned as she relaxed as she released her stranglehold on Groo the Slug whom was making disturbing gurgling noises, and wondering whether Sammy and Fluffy had been trying to scare her with a mean trick...though Squee the Spider jumping on the bug had abruptly brought the prank to an end, “That happened...was that supposed to happen?” 

The blue tinged spark of mechanical life died as the grey Squishy arachnid’s poking drained off the energy, and the short lived golem’s electronic existence winked out altogether to leave behind half molten Lego blocks on the garage floor at the ‘failed’ experiments.

Fluffy and Sammy approached the giant supernatural grey furred spider, which finished ‘eating’ and moved off to a garage wall where it scrabbled up and onto the rafter where it promptly blended into the shadows. The boy and his big orange pet cat stared at the rapidly cooling molten bricks of their morning’s hard work for long moments, and contemplated the close call which their neighbour Bethany was largely oblivious of.

“You know,” Fluffy commented after a lengthy silence after a few sniffs, “This could have turned into a total rat fuck of a disaster, now I think about it.”

“Yeah,” Sammy ran his fingers through his hair at the wasted effort, “Alteran resources gatherers are meant to be deployed on isolated asteroids. Just launch one and leave a couple of weeks, and come back to pick up the ingots of raw materials...maybe leaving one active on an inhabited planet, isn’t such a good idea.”

“So, how come you just don’t use Squishies to make it move around?,” Bethany frowned as she set down Groo, whom slithered up to the molten metal bricks which it proceeded to extend an exploratory pseudopod to in that cautious ‘is this hot’ kind of way, “I mean, you made a metal miniature of Squee and Snarf for me before, so why go through the trouble of all that song and dance this morning for something that looks like a Lego bug?”

Fluffy and Sammy just stared at the blonde like she was asking a terribly dumb question.

“Because Squishies are possessive,” Sammy replied, shaking his head at the memory of Moire and what had happened to the gold which had been dug up on the recent camping trip, “And they tend to have a mind of their own about keeping their stuff once they’ve made themselves at home, rather than programmed priorities that gets them to move on.”

“Oh,” Bethany wrinkled her nose at her neighbour’s pre-occupation with money, then held Groo up to eye – or rather, mouth level with a frown at her possessed sock slug, “I guess?”

“Maybe we should dumb things down a bit,” Fluffy suggested thoughtfully, “Something that’s child friendly and doesn’t have any moving parts.”

“Like what?,” Sammy toed the rather substantial chunks of cooled metallic Lego, then sighed as he went to get the dustpan and brush, “This is about as dumbed down as we can get an automated resource gatherer.”

“I was thinking something more like a Rat Brick,” Fluffy suggested, “We can even get your parents to field test it at the restaurant, before roping in Grampa to help market the stuff as a non-toxic rodent control alternative.”

Sammy looked thoughtful at the prospect of selling a product than cold hard cash...on second thoughts; he’d have to sell gold or silver for money too, since precious metals weren’t currency, “Okaayyy...that works, but we don’t have the right cooking ingredients at home and we’ve still got a few days before our weekly visit to the restaurant to pick up supplies.”

“Hey, you can use my Mom’s kitchen!,” Bethany perked up at the prospect of cooking, “My Mom likes to cook, she’s got everything in the kitchen.”

“Can’t hurt,” Fluffy said as he padded over to the garage side door, looking over his shoulder at the two kids, “Lets go bake some Rat Bricks.”

“Ewww, that sounds nasty,” Bethany said as wrinkled her nose, “Why don’t we call them something nicer, like Mouse Munchies?”

“Cute,” Sammy commented, as he swept up inert pieces of the inert Lego bug and dumped it in the bin, ending that particular experiment in automated resource gatherer for the moment “Still think the Rat Brick name has that dumb survivalist appeal people would go for.”

Sammy, Bethany and Fluffy went back over to Bethany’s place, to borrow Kirsten’s kitchen for a science experiment...

* * *


	41. Mouse Munchies and a New Abnormal

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Kirsten Stewart frowned as she sat on the lounge in front of the TV, sipping a cup of tea watching the insipid American late morning soaps,’Days of Our Lives’ or something, which was a little bizarre since she didn’t normally watch the soap operas on TV on account of how inane and mind numbing they were.

Which probably explained, why there was a block of time that was simply missing from her day – the last clear memory was her daughter Bethany dragging in the neighbour’s grandson, Sammy, followed by the boy’s curiously sniffing unusually large fluffy orange pet cat Fluffy whom Kirsten had private suspicions had some Bobcat in its pedigree, and confidently announcing she was going to make some ‘Mouse Munchies’ in the kitchen.

This had given Kirsten a little chill as her precocious daughter had never cooked before, nor expressed any interest in participating in domesticated tasks associated with food preparation. The child’s following explanation that ‘Mouse Munchies’ were some kind of home brewed rat bait which Bethany had stated was to stop the scuttling noises under the floorboards in her bedroom at night, had not instilled a sense of confidence in Kirsten even as she made a mental note to redeploy the snap traps under the house.

Despite her misgivings, rather than crush Bethany’s budding domestic aspirations, Kirsten had supervised the two children’s cooking endeavours and been relieved to find that the ingredients were rather innocuous and normal, containing no poisons which she wouldn’t have allowed anyway, and were rather less dangerous than the ineffective equal parts flour and Plaster of Paris mixed with sugar concoction folk remedy, prior to catching on that the rodent happily feeding on the mix suffered little more than sore butts if the solid white stools she found in the aftermath were anything to go by.

The two children had set about mixing the ingredients with the big orange at watching over them, when Bethany began giggling a little rhyme which Kirsten had read to her daughter in a bedtime story...okay, William Shakespeare had probably been a little too advanced, but Bethany seemed to have a thing for witches and she’d chanted enthusiastically as she stirred the mixing bowl with her sock slug beret sitting on her head – where did the child get such an odd Parramatta Eels beanie? It looked like a sock slug... ‘Double, Double, Toil and Trouble, Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble...’

And that was the last thing Kirsten recalled with any great clarity.

Kirsten sipped her tea with a frown as the mind destroying inanity of the soap opera played out on the black and white TV, the knowledge that she had been supervising her daughter and the neighbour’s grandson was there – but the details seemed to be curiously blanked out like she’d sleep walked through the whole event bonding with her child.

“How curious,” Kirsten said to herself as she put the cup of tea down, remembering that she had indeed made herself a pot of tea after the two kids had run off with their freshly baked Mouse Munchies, but the details prior to that were strangely nebulous and indistinct, “Where did the time all go?”

* * *

Snarf the Wombat poked its stubby muzzle out from the open hatch to the undercroft of the Stewart household, looked around for intruders a few moments whom might be observing, before coming out and standing up to dust itself off of the cobwebs and accumulated dust from a place where human seldom went.

“Snarf?,” the brown wombat gave itself a final shake, giving the all clear.

There was a moment, then a rather monstrous scuttling noise as a giant grey furred spider the size of a pillow and glistening fangs the size of a lipstick container scrabbled out, it’s multiple eyes observing the daylight as it raised grey fore claws to the sun in what might be construed a threatening display, but was really just a Squishy detecting the weak surrounding background energies of the strange realm which the alien solid silly creatures lived.

“Squee!,” the giant grey arachnid, proceeded to dust itself off of the debris clinging to its grey ‘fur’, which like its brown wombat shaped companion were really very fin colonies of cilia which served as sensory nodules in addition to the adapted ‘eye’ colonies which perceived the world around it in a visual spectrum.

The two eldritch horrors from alien realms which lurked within the depths of mankind’s primeval fears, stretched with macabre popping sounds as they went through a short callisthenic regime after spending time crawling under the Stewart’s house – not that it was needed, but the concept had been impressed upon them by the mussed up excited little blonde girl in a dirty yellow sundress, held in place by lots of little pseudopods on the back of a giant plush blue and yellow slug whose size had expanded from its usual ‘large’ sock size dimensions to accommodate its passenger.

“Groo,” the slug’s eyestalks extended towards the sun above, the disturbing noise of its inhuman passage as it hauled itself and the little blonde human held securely captive on its back, out of the hatch on the side of the house. 

“That was Fun!,” a bright green eyed Bethany gushed as she began shrugging out of the harness of tiny pseudopods securely holding her down, while the three inhuman abominations happily fed off the unsuspecting little girl’s soul as she got up and patted the worse of the dust and debris from her dress. In the perception of their Squishy sensory organs, Bethany was pulsing with excitement at exploring under the house she’d lived in all her life and just oozing with youthful juicy vitality, “We should play in the cave under my house more!”

If you think about it, it’s really quite horrific from a biological point of view – though to entities which existed in a non-corporeal environment as energy based organisms, it was really just business as usual. The side benefit of having a Squishy roosting on you on the plane of existence humans lived out their brief existences upon, is that your otherwise unused soul undergoes some badly needed exercise where it would otherwise be subject to shrinkage and dilapidation over time, that the withered remains would simply detach from the mortal coil after a relatively short existence of a couple of decades, though some human souls have been known to tenaciously cling onto their corporeal existence for a century or more.

As Groo the Slug shook its fur off in a doglike fashion and proceeded to shrink own to more manageable proportions and figuratively giving conservation of mass and energy the bird. The young Asian boy crawled out of the hatch on hands and knees followed by his unusually large fluffy orange pet cat whom looked rather disgruntled at having to crawl around under the neighbour’s house. 

“What do we do now, we’ve scattered all the Mouse Munchies we made?,” Bethany asked with bright eyes after picking up the now beanie sized sock slug whom she placed atop her head, impatiently expecting the home made rodent bait would have an immediate observable effect on the rodent population under her house.

“We wait and check back tomorrow whether there’s any dead inflated rodents,” Sammy replied, patting himself off as best he could, “The rats have to find the Rat Bricks we’ve put under the house and eat it, before anything happens.”

“I want to see them eat the Mouse Munchies and blow up like balloons,” Bethany said viciously as she mimed puffing out her cheeks with her hands exaggerating a blowing up effect, then finished dusting her dress off as best she could, “I hear them running around under the floor at night sometimes, squeaking and keeping me awake.”

“I can let you borrow Snarf and Squee for a few nights,” Sammy offered helpfully, “The scratching noises at night in our house have disappeared after Snarf and Squee came to live with us.”

“Squee?,” the giant grey spider queried as it turned around and looked back at the hatch leading down under the Stewart’s house – rodents were on the edibles list, after all.

“Snarf!,” the wombat shaped pest disposal smiled winningly at Bethany as it rubbed its fur covered tummy and began to move back into the hatch it had just come out of, after escorting the two children around the undercroft.

“Hold on you two,” Fluffy quickly reached out with catlike agility and sank his claws into the enterprising wombat and giant spider, collaring them before they could disappear under the neighbour’s house to act on the impulse they received, “You can have the surviving leftovers after we know the Rat Bricks work – we just spent an hour crawling under there, and it’d be a waste if you clear all the rodents out in one go.”

“Mouse Munchies,” Bethany corrected with a frown at the orange furred cat, looked thoughtful as she suddenly caught on that there was in fact a better mouse trap she hadn’t considered, “Um – can Snarf and Squee stay over at my house tonight with me and Groo, just in case the mousies don’t munch?”

“Sure, I suppose,” Sammy shrugged absently, earning a glare from Fluffy, “What? It’s not like grownups can see Squishies.”

“Hurrr,” Fluffy grumbled, right paw pressed to his furred forehead a moment in existential feline pain, “I can feel my tail getting munched on already by this.”

A smiling wide shiny eyed Bethany stepped up and put her arms around the neckless neck of the squat rotund brown wombat and the upper grey furred thorax between the legs of the spider, in a decidedly possessive fashion a young child exhibits towards a toy they really want and weren’t about to let go any time soon.

“What can go wrong?,” Sammy asked, to Fluffy’s sceptical thin feline half lidded glare, “It’s only for one night.”

* * *

Gregory Stewart drove home from a brief stopover at the local municipal library after spending a trying day at work, after the previous night’s revelation from his reclusive elderly Asian neighbour, Benjamin Sung, that he was actually perfectly fine and sound of mind.

Normality is a state of mind.

It doesn’t exist.

Normal is an artificial construct, the boundaries of which the mind has trained itself to perceive – it’s a condition imposed upon by others, and accepted through force of habit.

The ordeal of seeing the world as it really was without even the pretence of not seeing the invisible creatures skittering or floating around in the background, just out of mortal sight which people around him were oblivious to, had been trying enough that only his discussion with old man Benjamin next door had allowed him to adapt and take it all in stride that he wasn’t going crazy now he was no longer ignoring them.

Because Gregory now understood the normality everyone else accepted, was very much an abnormal state, and the mind would do ANYTHING to edit out the bits which threaten the group herd illusion of normality, to preserve the artificial construct even at the price of ignoring what’s right in plain sight.

Far from seeing visual aberrations that weren’t there that were induced by what the mental health experts and psychiatrists had insisted was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, supposedly induced by the stresses of battle in the jungles of Vietnam while serving in the Australian Army’s Special Air Service Regiment...well, those visual aberrations actually weren’t.

Monsters, were quite real.

He’d had a chat with a few of them yesterday night, and while Snarf the Wombat looked like a terribly cute roly poly brown wombat with a penchant for saying ‘snarf’ in place of whatever sounds a normal wombat made, Squee the Spider was a downright terrifying apparition of arachnophobia horror which Gregory admitted that if he’d bumped into the giant spider in the dark, he’d have hosed himself without a shred of shame and run for the rifle cabinet...which would have been a gross over reaction. 

The bug was about as friendly as a dog, if you ignored the fact the dog had two extra pair of legs and a disturbing few extra pair of eyes. Gregory still wasn’t particular comfortable with the idea of such non-human creatures lurking around in close proximity to his home, but Benjamin obviously got along with them...actually, ‘Her’. 

Moire. 

The mostly silent hissing Serpent Lady, whom bore more than a passing resemblance to that Bond movie actress, Jane Seymour – or at least the upper half of her torso when she wasn’t shape shifted back to her ‘default’ form as a golden scaled serpentine Chinese style dragon out of ancient myth and legend, whom had a penchant for draping herself possessively around Benjamin’s shoulders with what the elderly Asian presumed was an endearing expression, but Gregory had interpreted quite differently upon observing the serpentine dragon gazed upon the Asian man quite lovingly with tongue flickering from her lips.

Yes, quite disturbingly, Gregory had observed a similar predatory look from his wife, when eyeing a plate of chocolate chip cookies and calculating the calorie intake.

“Don’t gaze into the Abyss, or the Abyss might gaze back at you...that’s fucked up deep,” Gregory nodded to himself as he drove along the street to his house, the nuances exhibited by Moire were uncannily similar to his wife Kirsten, which made the non-human creature surprisingly easy to relate to. Or that could’ve been the alcohol talking last night, as he’d needed a few stiff drinks to calm his nerves down enough to listen to Benjamin’s strange tale of the truth of reality, and just why the bulk of humanity was functionally insane, “No wonder most blokes go nuts seeing reality. What’s seen, cannot be unseen.”

Yes, it did seem silly at first that the human species had managed to psychologically top itself so badly that they’d collectively hypnotised – or was that brainwashed? – themselves to see the world in weird racial group consciousness, selectively editing reality to fit into an acceptable indoctrinated world view to toe the religious party line. 

Indeed, the reclusive Asian man had calmly explained that some time in the past, a certain branch of a monotheistic religion had managed to deny reality so hard, its worshippers begun imposing a religious perception of ‘normality’ on the rest of the world whereby the things that did not fit into their acceptable paradigm of an orderly religious world view, were ruthlessly denied and edited out of their religious perception.

Humanity had thus been forced to give up ‘magic’, and all it entailed.

“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” Gregory blew his breath out as he pulled to the curb and sat behind the wheel of his car for a long moment after switching off the engine, and mused that was a large part of the reason just WHY such communities were so relatively rarely known in mainstream public knowledge, as the survivors of such persecutions had a great deal of reason not to advertise their existence, “Pray for the death of any witch in your family or business; pray that the Holy Ghost, fire will consume any witch holding your destiny. We really did it to ourselves.”

Gregory had stop over at the local library to look up a few books on the topic, before coming home. What he’d found had been rather unsettling – there’d been a lot of persecutions over the centuries, and the survivors had a great deal of incentive to hide and blend in with mainstream human civilisation, that he knew he certainly would hide if he were in their shoes...well, actually, he WAS in the shoes of the persecuted right now.

“God Damn It,” Gregory took a deep frustrated breath and exhaled as he sat there and studied the roof of the car a long moment, “Dad, you told me war changes a man, and I thought you were bullshitting. I’m sorry. Fuck, I wish you were still alive so I can say I’m sorry – I understand now.”

However, every so often, someone through trauma or great stress of loss such as being thrown into the midst of battle where denying reality posed the difference between life or death, had the lifelong indoctrinated blindfold over their eyes ripped away, to see raw unfiltered reality as it truly was. The poor unfortunate bastards would like as not go mad from seeing the visual aberrations they no longer possessed the ability to deny, trying to regain their aberrant sense of ‘normal’.

It was utterly bizarre to the accepted perception of normality, and it made So MUCH sense.

Gregory hauled himself out of the car and shut the door behind him, when the hairs on the back of his neck rose in that fashion which often pre-empted an ambush in his time in the jungles of Vietnam, as an unseen hidden enemy watched his patrol...it was a sensation he would have suppressed before today, a maddening itch that was to be ignored least the siren call of insanity ambush him.

But he wasn’t mad, Gregory knew that now and accepted it, which meant something was actually watching him.

Gregory took a moment to scan the street with sudden wariness even though it had been years since he’d left the jungle and the dangers within it behind. It took him a moment to see the culprits, then slowly smiled at the innocuous looking cats hiding under the cover of the parked cars up and down the street that were watching him with glimmering feline eyes.

“Hmm,” his time in the SASR in Vietnam sensitising Gregory to the seemingly random pattern of hiding places of the assorted observing felines in a rather more tactical oversight, that his sensitised honed senses could see the creatures had the street covered as well as any Viet Cong ambush, “Unless, you guys aren’t just cats?”

For a moment after he shut the car door behind him, Gregory found himself locking eyes for a long moment with a nasty looking black cat with chipped left ear under the parked car across the street. 

The black cat look like it had been the veteran of many urban battles, and the SASR veteran found himself inclining his head in a nod of recognition of one warrior to another...there was a pause, and the black cat nodded back at Gregory with unnatural intelligence in its amber eyes, before deciding the observation game was blown and scooted out from the under the parked car across the street, where it gestured to its furred cohorts with a flick of its sable tail and the cats on the street smoothly withdrew with the co-ordination of a veteran spec ops team.

The oppressive ‘watched’ sensation lifted and the street suddenly seemed to resume a semblance of suburban normality as the last cat disappeared out of sight.

“Still got it,” Gregory said under his breath, then sucked in his lips as he quickly glanced up and down the street to check if anyone had been watching the spectacle of the PTSD nut staring down a bunch of cats hiding on the street, before bursting out laughing.

It was Such a Relief knowing he wasn’t losing his marbles.

That bit of silliness over, Gregory let himself through the front gate and hastened up the garden path to the front door, and let himself into the relative sanctuary of his household where a wombat and giant spider was following his daughter around who’d come out to greet him with a blue and yellow furred slug with eyestalks sitting atop the little blonde girl’s head like a footy beanie...and his wife Kirsten obliviously watching the TV without a clue.

“Young children, animals and old people,” Gregory muttered in sudden enlightenment at the saying, smiling as his daughter rushed up to him.

“Daddy!,” Bethany gushed as Gregory knelt down to receive his daughter’s hug.

“Been a good girl today?,” Gregory asked his daughter, whom nodded – the eyestalks of the slug bobbing with the girl’s motions. Gregory reached over and thought ‘nice doggy’ as he rubbed Squee the Spider’s head – Benjamin had emphasised that demons...no, Squishies, were only as dangerous as you believed them to be, it was very much a frame of mind kind of thing, “Good boy.”

“Squee!,” the spider acknowledged, wagging its abdomen in a doglike fashion if not in form.

“That’s a good boy,” Gregory kept thinking ‘nice doggy’ as he switched over and rubbed the wombat’s broad flat head, whom preened at the rubbing with an approving bark.

“Snarf!,” the wombat responded.

“I haven’t met you yet, what’s your name?,” Gregory asked the beanie on top of his wide round eyed daughter’s head.

“Groo!,” the possessed sock slug replied, craning its eyestalks to examine Gregory.

“Good boy, you take good care of my little girl too,” Gregory said as he rubbed his daughter’s head.

“Um – Daddy...you can see my friends?,” a suddenly puzzled looking Bethany asked with a confused frown, “How does that work? You’re a grownup!”

“I met them yesterday, next door when Mr Sung introduced us. We’re friends,” Gregory replied to his daughter’s round eyed query, then lowered his voice as his oblivious redhead wife roused from the lounge and shut the TV off, “But don’t tell Mommy, she can’t See them like you and I can, so let not worry her about things she doesn’t need to know.”

“Oh, but grownups can’t see Squishies unless...,” Bethany blinked, then nodded with a secretive smile as she put her index finger over her lips, “I get it. You’re a Witch too, just like me.”

“I guess I am,” Gregory sucked his lips in, snorted softly with a nod at her daughter’s perceptive prognosis, which might not be all that far off the mark as he picked his daughter up, and carried the giggling little girl over to an oblivious Kirsten who’d come out of the lounge room to greet Gregory home with a welcoming smile, “I’m Home.”

Things were quite abnormally normal, in the Stewart household...there was only one crazy person left in the house, and she was totally oblivious to the condition.

* * *


	42. Learning to Code amounts to Spellcraft

…Australia…Earth…1974…

Safe at home, warm and comfortable after taking a bath before dinner, to wash the grime from under Bethany’s house where we’d been scattering Rat Bricks with the surprisingly hardcore little girl whose nights had been terrorised by the random scuttling sounds under the floor in the dark, Fluffy and I were finally able to take a moment to collate the information we’d been confirming throughout the day, and trying to make sense of the odd things we’d been going through lately.

“It’s still there,” Fluffy’s eyes darted around, peering at the alien icons which we now knew to be Alteran in origin, from being stuck in the dream world of the simulation we’d both been stuck in this morning, “I was hoping it would just go away, if we ignored it long enough.”

“Why?,” I frowned, focusing on the cat and ignoring the blocky script which had reverted back to the native Alteran programming script, “Did you think that would happen?”

“No, but I’m a cat, and I’m not happy where this was going to start with,” Fluffy replied, whiskers twitching, then his eyes dilated and narrowed as he ducked his head as his ears went flat, “Something is happening to us...it’s inside us, and changing us.”

“Okay,” I pursed my lips in thought as a chill went down my spine at the cat’s prognosis, and nodded soberly as I got up to get Fluffy’s pet health supplies, “I’ll get the worming tablets.”

“Hold on, super genius,” Fluffy put his tufted paw on my arm, shaking his head, “That is not going to work.”

“I knew that,” I sat back down unhappily on my bed next to the cat, glancing at the familiar icons out the corner of my eyes, “You’re the code cat. I’m not as good as you are at code, this make any sense to you?” 

Panic attacks work in strange ways – you tend to fall back on life experiences and training, and other than the scenarios we’d been drilled in inside the simulation this morning that were completely out of context, I had precious little of either. Fluffy was my little furry orange rock for my sanity to cling to, and sometimes, all it takes is somebody not panicking around you for the panic to stop dead.

Hey, some people make do with stuffed toys who’re speech challenged.

“Yes,” Fluffy said, his whiskers slicking back against his cheeks, “Yes, it does.”

“Can you hack it?,” I asked with sudden hope.

“Nope. Tried that earlier when you were baking Rat Bricks with Bet,” Fluffy admitted as he waved me back down from getting too hopeful, “I can see the menus, but my interface is read only with everything greyed out. I can’t even access the basic command prompt, total child lockout with no parental figure in sight.”

“Oh? Yeah, come to think of it,” I said, nodding thoughtfully as I studied the icons, “You have to be fifty five years old as a legal requirement, to get past the Childproof Lockdown. A lot of my menus are greyed out too...oh, my Command Prompt access works, wonder why?”

Fluffy went still, then cranked his head around to stare hard at me with round bulging eyes, “Myan?”

“Wonder what happens if I – ”

“DON’T TOUCH IT!,” Fluffy screamed as he sprang at me, claws extended to latch onto the front of my pastel blue unisex polyester jumpsuit top which my mom had bought at a K-Mart sale, “DON’T! JUST DON’T!”

“Okay, okay!,” I shouted back, not very successfully fending off the big orange cat with ears laid flat whom was suddenly sitting on top of me with his right paw smacking my face – fortunately with claws sheathed or I’d have been feeling it a lot more, “Jeez, what do you think I am, retarded?”

“Yes!,” Fluffy snarled back without pause, “You’re a four year old human, it goes with the territory!”

I wanted to snap back and say it wasn’t true...then again, getting stuck in a simulated reality for a year, tends to give you a lot of time to think things over and admit that you were only stuck there because you acted like an impulsive curious four year old.

That impulsiveness evidently hadn’t gone away.

“Okay, yes, I get it, so get off me, cat,” I pushed Fluffy off, taking a few moments to unhook his claws off my polyester top and sat back up, “Look, I just want some answers what’s going on with us.”

“Well, let me do the exploring – I’ve at least got more training than you have,” Fluffy replied, his ears popping back upright as he looked thoughtful, and shaking his head to admit, “Simulated experience, is better than none.”

“Well, how? You can’t touch my interface – I think it’s a security measure to prevent unauthorised access,” I replied to the cat, who moved back over and gave me a once over, then and pressed his orange furred cheek against mine in what might be construed as feline affection.

“Okay. This works,” Fluffy stated as he sat on my lap and lifted his right paw and pointed at an icon, “Press this.”

“Uh – what?,” I asked as I peered over his shoulder, then the irritated cat grabbed my right hand and guided it to the icon with his right paw on the back of my hand to select one of the icons hanging in the air, “That...works?”

A cube of densely packed icons floated in my field of view – a visual representation of the various security protocols in play.

“Hmm, so much for security from external manipulation,” Fluffy frowned thoughtfully as his slit feline scrutinised the new visual depiction of arcane Alteran programming symbology which popped up in a new window, “I’m getting the weird feeling this thing was designed by an idiot...gimme your other hand, I think I can hack this after all.”

I held my left hand up so the cat now hand both paws resting on the back of my hands, which he guided a little clumsily with soft pressure to where he wanted my hands to go. It was quite clumsy, but then it occurred to me that I’d been able to briefly infiltrate Fluffy’s mind a few days ago, during my initial explorations of my ‘new powers’ before meeting Bethany – so again, impulsively, I established a ‘handshake’ and grasped Fluffy’s mind.

The cat reacted by going stiff and digging his claws into the skin on the backs of my hands. 

“Ow.” 

“Sam...Don’t. Help,” Fluffy directed with a snort disorientating at the duality of senses, relaxing as he caused my fingers to flex even as the claws on his paws prickled skin in cadence to my moving fingers, “On second thoughts, just sit and be quiet – this is going to take...a while.”

Fluffy’s ears twitched as he glared at the floating cube, then began directing my hands to the holographic object.

“Sure,” I said, watching with interest as the cat used my hands manipulate the cube, which he began dismantling – I didn’t have the specialised knowledge Fluffy did, to understand the nuances of how Fluffy was taking the security programs apart. Now, it was sort of interesting for about five minutes, before my attention began to wander in the way a child getting bored out of his mind does – you ever notice time drags when you’re watching on the sidelines, but flies when you’re playing?

Bo-ring...I kept as still as I could without fidgeting, “Are you done yet?”

“No,” Fluffy replied, keenly focused like a cat crouched in front of a mouse hole.

I waited for another few minutes, feeling my legs start going numb with a fairly heavy mature cat sitting on my lap for a prolonged period in one position. Funny how Fluffy’s weight never mattered much, when he was lying on my lap when I was brushing him to remove loose fur, or when he used me as a child sized mattress to sleep on – it probably had something to do with my hands were occupied doing something under my control, where Fluffy had currently borrowed them and was moving them around.

“Close?,” I asked hopefully, beginning to fidget as my fingers danced under the cat’s paws, “Are we there yet?”

“Stop moving your head,” Fluffy complained as he pressed his orange furred cheek against mine.

“Your whiskers are tickling me,” I complained back as the cat’s orange tufted paws steered and claws prickled the backs of my hands with a precise dexterity no normal cat possessed, beating down a tattoo in time with my fingers which danced on the holographic keyboard filled with blocky Alteran icons, “How much longer is this going to take?”

“As long as it takes, so stop nagging me are we there yet, it makes me want to bite you,” Fluffy replied gruffly, his thoughts overlaying mine in a psychic effort to tele-operate my four year old fingers better through the psychic connection I’d established with him, “Circumventing the child proof locks isn’t as easy as I made it out to be – this thing was put together by an idiot savant – programming’s pure genius, but the logic’s totally moronic.”

Much as I hated to say it, but the spinning cubic matrix of dense Alteran programming icons Fluffy was dismantling in the holographic field of view, was boring me to tears. My mind was wandering off and considering the events today while Fluffy chased down code icons – it’d probably have been fascinating if I were a programmer, but I’m more of a nuts and bolts kind of boy. 

Back when I’d been stuck in the simulated reality of a dystopian space opera this morning with the cat, I’d opted for getting an engineering specialty head humped into my brain cells, which this morning’s cooking experiments with baking ‘Rat Bricks’ revealed to be a form of Magitech when our little blonde neighbour’s mother Kirsten, consistently failed to make anything but normal honey sponge cakes using the same ingredients.

Bethany wasn’t all that far off from the truth with that Shakespearian witch’s chant while she’d been helping us mix dough, not that it had any real effect other than her enjoyment cooking with us with her mother supervising.

However, the information head humped into Fluffy’s peanut sized brain during the simulation was Alteran programming, and regardless of how the cat wasn’t a drooling vegetable with the information density packed into that tiny amount of neural matter, ‘Alteran Programming’ was...functionally Spellcraft.

Namely, I could make the cool Alteran hardware and maybe hardcode it to do a basic limited range of tasks, Fluffy was the one who programmed the software telling the hardware to dance in a much more versatile way. There was a bit of overlap, but if an engineer is arrogant enough to think that software programmers sit on their ass all day, sunning themselves and stuffing their faces, all I can say is...

’Learn To Code’.

Just try it.

Humility will be learned in fairly short order.

Anyway, I maybe caught a tenth of what Fluffy was doing, and the cat was literally ten thoughts ahead of me solving problems I couldn’t even think to grasp as icons flew apart under my cat manipulated hands. Of course, if you threw Fluffy at a malfunctioning hyperdrive or micro-fusion reactor, you’d get an extra crispy cat in short order – we both had our specialties and uses.

“Oh! – Oh, I’m good, I’m so good,” Fluffy purred with excitement as his rapidly tapping claws on the back of my hands became more aggressive, as he closed in for the metaphorical kill, “I’m a fucking furred genius, I am, I am! Mrow!”

My cat has never possessed a particularly small ego, I thought as Fluffy’s drumming claws threatened to puncture skin which was already sorely abused. I don’t know why people do it, but there’s a moment where you’re typing something where you’re about to finish a sentence, that just have to pound the key stroke extra hard, as if that might convey your feelings just a bit more to whatever it is you’re typing – not that it does, but it makes you feel better about having finished or completed something.

“Ow. Ow. Ow. Hurting. Ow,” I said in deadpan, trying to notify the cat he was pushing the pain boundary, but he was too excited to notice as his body posture assumed that positions cats instinctively go into when they’re about to pounce, leaning forward alertly with eyes fixed on the target.

Well, one of Fluffy’s claws struck down extra hard in an act of triumphant feline malice, “Nya!”

“OW! Fuck! That broke skin you furred psychopath!,” I exclaimed, snatching my left hand back as a small – who am I kidding, a ‘tiny’ bead of blood welled up from the wound in the skin under my scrutiny.

“It. Is. Done,” Fluffy grinned with feline pride, ignoring my complaint as he preened smugly, “I cracked the child proof coding lock blocking our access to internal dialogue scripts. We’re In – praise me, am I good or what?”

“I’m Bleeding, Fluffy!,” I said, nursing my superficially punctured left hand which wasn’t hurting at all to tell the truth, and the tiny bead blood had pretty much coagulated instantly as I scowled that it wasn’t bleeding worse to make Fluffy feel bad.

The remnants of the spinning cube which Fluffy had been methodically dissecting, promptly flew apart and disintegrated.

“...HUM4N1T43 N4N1T3 C0MM4ND N0D3 0P3RAT1NG $Y$T3M, 0NL1N3...

“Oh...that can’t possibly be good,” I said, wound forgotten as I ‘heard’ the badass echoing mechanical voice reverberating ominously inside my head, “Did it say Humanitae?”

And then the data stream began flooding my mind, and I understood just what had been going on the past few days for once – it had all started with a blue crystals in my Grampa’s rock collection...which was now inside Fluffy and I, and I was fully aware of what they were. 

Alteran Combat Nanites...which I only had rudimentary knowledge about, since the simulated reality Fluffy and I’d been stuck in, had predated such widespread deployment of nanites. It was very much an experimental technology during the Great Exodus era, given how badly the Alteran Fleet had backslid in applied magitech under the constant alien assaults which kept the fleet pinned down in that far away galaxy of constant never ending war.

“...4CC3$$ - PR10R1TY $3CUR3 C0MMUN1C4T10N CH4NN3L – N0T D3T3CT3D...

“...4CC3$$ - 41T3R4N D4T4B4$E$ - N0T D3T3CT3D...

“...4CC3$$ - HUM4N1T4E C1V1L1S4T10N - N0T D3T3CT3D... 

“We’re fucked,” Fluffy agreed, ears going flat as the creepy mechanical voice continued to implacably intone inside our heads along with a data stream which filled in some blanks but left a lot of other new questions unanswered, “The Humanitae is gone?”

“...4LT3RAN $URV1V4L PR0T0C0L$ 1N 3FF3CT...

Fluffy and I both understood just how Alteran Survival Protocols got activated – namely, the Humanitae has managed to get taken out by something big and bad enough to destroy a civilisation which spans a galaxy and a couple of alternate universes, and there’s nobody left alive to take charge but...

“...TH3 PR1NC3P$ 1$ D3AD...L0NG L1V3 TH3 PR1NC3P$...

...You...

“...C0R3 M4ND4T3 - R3P0PUL4T3 TH3 4LT3R4N $SP3C13$...

More to the point, the Survival Protocols don’t let you choose to decline, since you’re pretty much it as far as what’s left of the Humanitae is concerned. Even if all that’s left of it is swimming inside around your body, and doing nasty unsanctioned stuff to your reproductive organs which made Fluffy cross his hind legs with a little green look at what was being done down there.

Me? 

Well, now I knew why my thing had grown so unnaturally big down there overnight – I’d worry why later, because I’m sure that ‘repopulate the Alteran species’ thing involved squicky adult stuff I don’t even want to know about.

“...3RR0R...4N0M4LY...PR0T0-4LT3R4N D3T3CT3D, $P3C13$ CR1T3R14 N0T M3T...UND3RR4G3D 4LT3R$N, M1N1MUM 55 $T4N4RD$ 4G3 CR1T3R14 N0T M3T...UN4UTH0R1$3D 4CC3$$ - CH1LD 4BU$3 PR0T0C0L$ 3NG4G3D...L0CKD0WN R3$T0R3D...B4$IC TR41N1NG R3GIME $CH3DUL3D T0 R3$UM3 UP0N $L33P CYCL3...H4V3 4 N1C3 D4Y...

And with that the cubic icon representation of child proof access locks to the underlying programming which Fluffy had managed to temporarily circumvent, summarily kicked us both out of the data stream and internal dialogue of the rogue nanite colonies which we now knew were ticking away inside us.

“Ah...so that’s what’s happening,” Fluffy said, nodding with sudden enlightenment as the cube he’d spent the last hour (?!?) disassembling, re-assembled itself and restored integrity of the Childproof Lockdown, “It all makes a twisted kind of sense now.”

“What?,” I asked the cat fearfully, “I’m scared, Fluffy.”

“Well...imagine your maker’s civilisation’s gone extinct, and you need to repopulate their species, follow me?,” Fluffy licked his paw with feline calm and dignity, to which I nodded for him to go ahead and elaborate, “And all you’ve got to work with is a little alien boy you’ve modded into the image of your maker, which constitutes child abuse under your laws and poses a conflicting logic loop, and his pet cat which you’ve also modded who isn’t even the right species so he’s hardly an alternative – all so terribly illegal...still with me, Sam?”

“Oh...yeah. So much, actually,” I rubbed my mouth with a dawning frown of enlightenment, at the conclusion my pet cat had drawn, which was the same one I was coming to as I considered the somewhat spastic events over the last few days which seemed to be randomly tossed at us, “Alterans are Morons.”

* * *


	43. There's a reason why people grow out of sucking their thumbs...

...Australian...Earth...1974...

The pair stubby golden horns bobbed up and down in a bouncy gait as its owner made its curious way below the level of the rock cabinet’s display shelf, then paused as it came to Benjamin who was crouching and peering thoughtfully through the glass display, at the slightly dusty empty space occupied by a tiny sliver of a stray shard of blue crystal which had been chipped off, on the shelf where a pair of larger blue glassy crystals pebbles had once occupied.

There was a pause, then Moire the dragon poked her head up and peeked over the rim of the shelf, her amber serpent eyes dilating as she turned her head back and forth to study the pretty rock collection in the cabinet which Benjamin had accumulated over a lifetime, then looked askance at the calm and stoical elderly Asian with twin wisps of steam rising from her golden scaled nostrils.

“Funny how things fade from your memories, when you aren’t watching,” Benjamin commented to the friendly creature from myth and legend by his side, affectionately patting her back and feeling the surprisingly fine and supple warm golden scales under his touch, “Everything you collect has a memory and a story to it, sometimes a feeling or an emotion, a dream of a moment in time when there were still possibilities.”

“Hsssss,” Moire turned back to the suddenly very interesting rocks, her forked tongue flickering out and licking her finely golden scaled lips as she pressed her snout against the glass.

“We’re sorry we took them out to play with, Grampa,” Sammy said quietly to his mildly disappointed kneeling grandfather, whom at least appeared a little mollified at his grandson’s apology, “We didn’t know they were so important to you.”

Moire wagged her head side to side studying the colourful display of rocks within the cabinet, her nose and short forepaws pressed against the glass like an excited kid at a cake shop picking out a treat.

“But some dreams are stillborn, and fade as you grow older because they can never be,” Benjamin shook his head with a wry melancholic smile, sitting back on his heels as he looked over to his grandson and pet cat whom were nearby watching him with trepidation, “It hurts remarkably little after all this time, losing the last vestiges of such feelings reminding you of the person you could have been with. They were just rocks, after all.”

Benjamin had been initially alarmed when his grandson had come to him about having played with his rock collection, and perhaps damaging some of the more precious specimens which could be worth several hundred dollars to a rock collector...not expensive in the grand scheme of things, but the rock collection had been one of the few things he’d preserved from being arbitrarily disposed of by Benjamin’s former shrew of a spouse during the hellish years of the marriage he’d endured.

The thought of his grandson playing and breaking something, had sent a pang of emotional turmoil through Benjamin, that he’d rushed to the display cabinet in the lounge to see what was missing from the collection of crystals and rocks. However, having located the small pair of missing items which a much younger man had imagined would make a fine pair of ear rings for a special someone, Benjamin found that...it didn’t really matter to him now, as much as he thought it would.

“Hate to break it to you,” Fluffy stated flatly, “But those things weren’t rocks.”

“Oh?,” a distracted Benjamin said as he slid open the glass door – the remaining sliver of blue crystal bugged him on some level, that he felt the need to remove it from the cabinet as it was a reminder of what was lost. But whatever the cat had to say, was lost in the moment as a surprised Benjamin was forced to grab onto grabbed Moire as she eagerly lunged forth with hungry intent at the now exposed rocks with forked tongue leading, “Hey – NO! Not Edible! Bad dragon.”

“Rocks taste yucky,” Sammy said, pulling back on the golden serpent’s coil, as the dragon was manhandled back from the cabinet by the two Sungs and their cat, “Aaah!”

Moire’s length and bulk expanded as only unnatural Squishy physics allowed, and she deftly looped coils around the two smaller obstacles tugging on her sides whom were preventing her from getting at the colourful rocks, before scrutinising Benjamin whom now blocked the cabinet’s opened sliding door, and posed a bigger problem...a happy food source was a tasty food source, and Benjamin was not radiating happy vibes.

“Hsssss?,” Moire paused scrabbling forth to get at the colourful rocks, at the empathic sensation of being admonished being directed at her, cocking her head to look askance at Benjamin as the elderly Asian strenuously pushed her back from his precious rock collection – the cat and little boy were unceremoniously wrapped up in the safely in serpent’s coils, and posed little more than an irritant.

“No. Not Edible,” Benjamin said emphatically with a certain amusement as he watched the captured cat’s furry orange legs kicking with upper body wrapped in the golden scaled coils, bushy orange tail flailing as the muffled yowling pet struggled to extract himself alongside his grandson’s similarly kicking little legs, “Down. Sit. Stay.”

Sure, one or two missing rocks wasn’t that big an issue, but the rock collection as a whole still had some sentimental value – and while Benjamin was fairly sure the shape shifting dragonet wouldn’t be harmed eating rocks seeing as she was literally made of gold, he wasn’t particularly keen on exposing Moire to danger or losing more of his rock collection either.

“Hsssss,” Moire looked decidedly disgruntled, but lay down on the carpet with the ‘meal’ being exuded by the capture struggling boy and pet cat whom were attempting to extract themselves from Moire’s snakelike grip. An amused Benjamin kept a watch on her for rebellious behaviour, as he reached behind himself to close the cabinet’s glass sliding door.

“Ow,” Benjamin said, more in surprise than pain as he snatched his hand back which had been feeling blindly behind him, to find the sharp sliver of blue crystal embedded in the side of his index finger, “Bugger.”

Benjamin held his finger up to the light for a closer look at the small bead of blood welling up around the pinprick of punctured flesh around the needle of blue crystal, which seemed to pulse an electric blue just before suddenly dissolving with a slight stinging sensation.

There are some habits, which just come instinctively under certain conditions.

Like breathing, you just do it without thinking things through.

Benjamin instinctively stuck his injured index finger in his mouth...which suddenly felt like he’d jammed his tongue on the electrode of a fully charged rectangular E battery, before his mouth went more numb than could be attributed to simply short circuiting a battery with one’s tongue.

“Ohh Cwapb,” Benjamin uttered with the implicit understanding that he’d fucked up by the numbers, as the numbness spread to his face and down his neck, robbing him of his motor control over his body that before he knew it, he’d collapsed and was lying on his side.

An alarmed Moire ceased playing with her food, and let Sammy and Fluffy slip from her coils in alarm – but by then, the damage was done...Benjamin Llewellyn Sung had been infected by the dormant Alteran nanites, and was unconscious as the initial nanites which entered his bloodstream, proceeded to ransack his body for resources to ‘remediate’ critical deficiencies...

* * *

...3RR0R...3RR0R...3RR0R...

...H0M1N1D $P3C13$ D3T3CT3D, UN4UGM3NT3D PR1M1T1V3 S1M14N...

...3RR0R – D1R3CT L1N3 G3N3T1C 4NC3$T0R 0F R31GN1NG PR1NC3P$...

...3RR0R – N0N-4LT3R4N B10L0GY...

...3RR0R – D3GR4D3D PHY$10L0GY D3T3CT3D...

...3RR0R – J0B FUNCT10N – P4R3NT4L GU4RD14N 0F PR1NC3P$...

...R3M3D14T10N – D3PL0Y R3M3D14L B4$1C $T4ND4RD 4UGM3NT4T10N P4CK4G3 ?...

...N0T3 – M1N1MUM 4G3 CR1T3R14 M3T...

...C0RR3CT1ON – R3M3D14T10N, D3PL0Y R3GENT PR10R1TY 4UGM3NT4T10N P4CK4G3 ?...

...4UTH3NT1C4T10N R3QU3ST...

...4CC3$$ - PR10R1TY $3CUR3 C0MMUN1C4T10N CH4NN3L – N0T D3TECT3D...

...4CC3$$ – 41T3R4N D4T4B4$3$ – N0T D3TECT3D...

...4CC3$$ - HUM4N1T43 C1V1L1$AT10N – N0T D3TECT3D...

...4LT3R4N $URV1V4L P0T0C0L$ 1N 3FF3CT...

...C0R3 M4ND4T3 – R3P0PUL4T3 TH3 4LT3R4N $P3C13$...

...0V3RR1D3 4PPR0V3D – 4UTH3NT1C4T10N GR4NT3D...

...R3$0URC3 4LL0C4T10N 4UTH0R1$ED...

...G3N3T1C C0NV3R$10N 1N PR0GR3$$...

...R3G3NT 4UGM3NT4T410N 1N PR0GR3$$...

* * *


	44. Death is not the End...Not when Possession is 9/10ths of the Law

...Australia...Earth...1974...

“Bugger me,” Benjamin Llewellyn Sung thought as he hovered over the prone body slumped on the carpet, and ‘watched’ his grandson go into a panic after uncoiling himself from Moire’s embrace to find ‘Grampa’ collapsed in front of the rock cabinet, “I think I’m dying.”

The boy and the guardian spirit whom had possessed the cat rushed over, and pushed Benjamin’s body over onto his back as they both checked for signs of life. Benjamin noted that his slack face was now staring blankly looked up, and he found himself looking up too and calmly studying the plaster wreaths on the ceiling, which he never really noticed up until now – funny how you could live in a house for a decade, and not notice such details.

“So this is how it ends,” Benjamin thought as the boy burst out in tears after shaking the body as Moire ambled over. The golden dragon studied the body, then shifted her gaze upwards and looked at Benjamin curiously, as she began bouncing up and down playfully on her stubby paws, “What a complete waste of a life, just when I’ve met the love of my life and things were looking up.”

Fluffy the cat was pressed against the boy’s side in an attempt to comfort Sammy, but generally getting in the way as the boy hugged the pet against him and began wailing at the lack of response from the body.

“Damn it, I never even lived long enough to receive the age pension,” it was strange what flashes through one’s mind when dying, Benjamin thought, as Moire nudged the wailing little boy and directed the child’s attention up above the still body...the cat also looked, blinked before his feline eyes bulged and dilated, then stiffened with a gasp as his eyes rolled up and going limp in Sammy’s arms upon seeing the transparent wispy apparition, Benjamin snorted, “Pussy.”

Sammy was feeling very...off.

His body and nerves were tensed in an instinctive ‘fight or flight’ reaction, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense. It took a few moments for him to notice an Alteran icon in the bottom right corner of his field of view, which looked like and ‘i’ symbol with pulsing rings around it...an external Electromagnetic Field signal?

Sammy accepted the ‘handshake’, and the external signal from the nanites inside Benjamin’s body finally made contact.

“Oh...Grampa?,” Sammy said after a shocked pause as he directed his gaze at the ghostly wraith above Benjamin’s body, wiping away his tears with the back of his hands as Benjamin watched his grandson make an odd arcane motion with his right hand, then visibly relaxed. The boy gave the limp drooling cat in his arms a shake, whose paws flopped limply in the way which indicated the cat was completely out of it, “Um, hey, Fluffy – stop playing dead. It isn’t funny – Grampa’s okay.”

“Well, that happened, what did you do?,” Benjamin was not at all amused that the cat had gone AWOL at a critical moment where his grandson needed the emotional support most, “What happens now?”

“Heheh – I didn’t notice the timer countdown, right next to the Electromagnetic Field sensitivity that’s been screeching in the background,” a now calmed Sammy turned his attention back up to the ghostly Benjamin, cocked his head a moment as if listening to something – no, not quite, Benjamin thought as he studied his grandson, the boy was looking at something in the corner of sight with a disgusted expression, “Um, Grampa – you’re currently undergoing one of those out of body experiences, while your body is being renovated by those nanites we were talking about earlier.”

Benjamin would have pursed his lips, if he were still back in his body.

Moire took the opportunity to pad over to Benjamin’s body where she glanced at the rock display cabinet whose door was still open, then chose to wrap herself around the elderly Asian in a warm embrace as she laid her head down no the body’s chest and started dozing, as Benjamin’s grandson shook off the crying jag. Well, a lot of weird things had been happening around the house lately, Benjamin metaphorically shrugged and just rolled with the latest development.

“Suuure...well, I suppose that’s something of a relief. Why am I not freaking out in a blind panic over this?,” a perplexed Benjamin didn’t have eyelids to blink or a brow to furrow as he metaphorically patted his transparent astral body, which he now noted had a thin glowing lifeline tethering him back to his unconscious physical body, “What are nanites? You two never got around to explaining what they were.”

“Probably because you need a body to feel those kinds of things, Grampa,” Sammy replied with a shrug, putting Fluffy down and arranging the unconscious cat in a curled up nose to tail position as the boy looked thoughtful, then brightened with understanding at blurting out a subconscious epiphany, “Oh, that’s why Fluffy and I didn’t feel much of anything when we were stuck in that simulated reality this morning. I thought it was odd why I wasn’t acting like a normal four year old turning into a basket case with his pet cat, when we were tossed into a dystopian future with unfriendly aliens roaming around everywhere trying to stick pointy things in us.”

Benjamin didn’t pretend to understand the tangent his grandson seemed to have gone chasing after as he absently extended a transparent hand and began petting Moire’s dozing head whom momentarily cranked open an amber serpentine eye, then closed it again. Benjamin could at least grasp why he was so unnaturally calm while literally floating up above his body and looking down on it, then impatiently redirecting the topic back on course, “Nanites?”

“Nanites. They’re really teeny tiny machines that were sleeping in the blue crystal which is actually a stasis field, until they can get into a body and start multiplying and uh, changing it from the inside out,” Sammy explained, nodding to himself, “They’re mostly benign...sort of...hmmm – kind of depends on how you view death, actually.”

“How so?,” Benjamin squinted down at his physical body – it was still breathing, as far as he could tell, “I’m not dead, just unconscious...right?”

“Well, right now the nanites are still in the replication phase...eventually there’s going to be a crossover point and the body will cease biological function after enough of it’s been taken apart for raw materials, then rebooted and come back to life again when the nanites finish rebuilding it again cell by cell. So technically, that qualifies you as a zombie, I guess?,” Sammy frowned, looking at Benjamin’s body and prodding experimentally at it a few times with a confused look, “On the other hand, your soul is still anchored in place because you’re still talking to me, so it’s not like you’ve ‘moved on’ and some Squishy’s having fun occupying the body pretending it’s you...probably not as far as religious beliefs in immortal souls and stuff like that go, technically yeah, if you go by the strict medical definition.”

“Okay,” Benjamin decided he wasn’t too happy with his grandson’s prognosis, which gave him a new appreciation of just how ‘demonic’ the powerful entities his grandson blithely lumped under ‘Squishies’ actually were – amongst whom Moire could be counted, though Benjamin couldn’t bring himself to imagine the dragon as threatening, “That is...bad.”

“Mrow,” Fluffy stirred, making running motions as he swam back to consciousness as his ears sprang up and eyes opened, to focus on Benjamin’s bemused transparent apparition hovering over the elderly Asian’s body where the cat instantly leapt up and raised his hackles with whiskers splayed, as he began choking, “G – Gh – Ghhh – Ghhhh – ”

“Technically it’s an ‘Astral Body’ according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Fluffy,” Sammy said calmly, patting the cat’s arched back whom flinched at the touch, “Grampa’s still attached to a body, so he doesn’t qualify as a ghost.”

The cat mechanically cranked his head around to stare glassily at the boy and uttered a strangled, “Mrrwm?”

“Accept the signal handshake and dial the EM field sensitivity setting down – it’s down on your lower right hand side next to the countdown timer, that icon that looks like an antenna with pulsing rings around it,” Sammy suggested helpfully to the stressed and tensed cat, “Otherwise you’ll feel like someone’s running fingernails over a chalk board that’s probably setting your teeth on edge...kind of explains why ghost scare the crap out of people, huh?”

A tensed and stressed looking Fluffy squinted at to his bottom right side of his field of view, then swiped his paw at something invisible and in an arcane motion. The fluffy orange cat’s orange fur began standing down as Fluffy visibly relaxed as the eldritch bone jarring sensation jangling his sensitive feline nerves, receded to something tolerable.

“Ouch, that was such a nasty feeling,” a relieved Fluffy said an exhaled a shuddering breath, scrutinising Benjamin’s wraithlike apparition, before his eyes dilated and unfocused a moment as the cat metaphorically ‘ducked out’ into his skull to check something, then refocused again as he came back, “Okay – that timer counting down is nanite construction going on, until we have a qualified adult who has the authority to look after us. What happened?”

“I stabbed myself while you two were playing with Moire,” wraith-Benjamin said stoically, holding up and transparent right hand with index finger raised, then mimed sticking said index finger in his mouth.

“Ah,” an enlightened Fluffy and Sammy said, looking up at the apparition of Grampa.

“Understandable. Dumb, but understandable,” Fluffy nodded with feline superiority as he got up and climbed onto Sammy’s lap where he curled up and stared at Benjamin’s body, then up at the apparition tethered to it and back again thoughtfully, “How come that didn’t happen to us?”

“The nanites that got into us didn’t have a road map to follow the first time, so they just put us both under while they multiplied enough to do the conversion,” Sammy explained to the cat, the information coming to him in a subliminal data stream that just sprang to mind when he needed it, “It’s easier now they’ve got a clue what they’re doing.”

“Hmmphf,” Fluffy snorted, nodding as his ears twitched in thought for long moments, “I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, me too,” Sammy admitted, now the cat had brought it up – having been exposed to a scare and then crying as his body instincts ran away with him after being bombarded by EM signals from the exponentially replicating nanites inside his Grampa ‘pinging’ him to establish a communications handshake, had been a tiring experience.

“The rice should be cooked, let me go get the steamed chicken with ginger and shallots out of the steamer and...um...oh dear,” wraith Benjamin contemplated his transparent hands, which he experimentally waved right through the rock display cabinet behind him with a frown, “This might be a problem.”

“Hssssss?,” Moire opened her amber eyes and looked up at Benjamin whom was tethered by the lifeline above her with contemplative serpentine flickers of her tongue. 

Without the interfering baggage of the meat in the way to block the empathic ‘signal’ Benjamin was broadcasting, the ancient lizard could pick up the ghostly elderly Asian’s wants and needs rather more easily.

After all, the difference between a ghost and ‘Ascension’ into a higher plane of existence with the other Ascended entities like Moire, was the strength of the soul and energy it brought along with it when transitioning from a physical body...and over the past few days, Moire had been giving Benjamin’s dilapidated unused soul a rather hefty 24/7 nurturing workout by ‘feeding’ off it.

Said regularly exercised soul had been revitalised from ‘teetering on cutting its ties’ and expiring from mortal existence, to something approaching ‘cream puff’ in terms of strength, which encouraged to Moire to expend further effort on improving her chosen roost she’d attached herself to.

“Waugh!,” Fluffy squealed and clung onto Sammy whom scrambled back, as Benjamin’s body began to jerk about in unnatural motions, accompanied by wince worthy creaks and pops as muscles and ligaments were pulled and twisted in ways they probably hadn’t moved in for decades.

“Oooh – Ahhh, Ughh – owww, that isn’t suppose to bend that way, no, don’t – oh, that’s going to hurt in the morning,” the floating fluctuating apparition of Benjamin cringed and moaned in agitated sympathetic groans, sort of like the commentary from a backseat driver watching someone else drive their car as Moire temporarily ‘Possessed’ his physical body and took control of it, then began experimentally moving the ‘meat bag’ around in the best macabre traditions of a zombie movie trope.

Abruptly after getting a ‘feel’ for being in a real meat and sinew chassis, Benjamin’s body stopped flailing in unnatural positions, going very still...and then jerkily sat up as Moire decided like any L-Plate learner driver, it was time to hit the road for real. Benjamin’s head flopping forward limply on the neck where it rolled to one side at an angle, which made the tethered wraithlike Benjamin’s face distort in a ghostly distorted grimace as clasped his own immaterial neck with both hands in sympathetic pain at what his physical body was being put through – which looked remarkably like some ghost trying to tear its head off, actually.

“Gently, gently – oooh, the neck, the neck!,” the agitated wraith of Benjamin hovered over the potential disaster scene and clutched his transparent head like it was about to pop off, while the head on his physical body flopped back and forth while Moire awkwardly ‘drove’ the Possessed body to a standing position, then began shambling towards the kitchen like an L-Plate driver weaving drunkenly down the street, “The Door! Watch the Wall!”

Fluffy and Sammy watched the antics of Grampa with round eyes as Benjamin’s body extended hands and began groping along the wall which Moire had veered off into, while Grampa ghostly apparition floated above it exhorting directions and warnings.

“And this,” Fluffy observed dryly as he hopped out of Sammy’s lap, and curiously followed the shambling Possessed zombie blindly groping its way to the kitchen with hands extended to feel for obstacles in the way due to Moire leaving Benjamin’s head alone which flopped about, and screwed with her sense of balance, “Is why you don’t get family members to teach you how to drive.”

* * *


	45. The THING...or Blob...whatever...

...Australia...Earth...1974...

“Being converted into an Alteran looks pretty painful,” a wincing Fluffy commented as he watched Moire drop a kitchen knife point first on Grampa’s foot with an off putting ‘thunk’ sound, “It’s a good thing we weren’t awake when it happened to us, huh?”

Me, I jerked and stopped eating dinner as my mind tried to process the damage in terms I could understand. Shock is like that, it just didn’t feel real and I was more confused at first. 

Moire looked down curiously at the knife as it quivered and stuck, pinning Grampa’s foot to the linoleum floor in a cringe worthy way that makes you tremble all over in sympathetic pain – not that Moire noticed, she was only Possessing Grampa’s body in a cohabitation arrangement and wasn’t feeling much of anything that happened to Grampa’s body.

The sight and sound just brought to mind that crunching noise your toes make, when you kick something immoveable in the middle of the night while you’re half asleep and stumbling to the bathroom. 

Had Grampa been awake, he’d probably be howling in pain and hopping around clutching his foot – and that might have set me off on a different reaction.

Hey, I’m a four year old with limited life experiences – I’m pretty sure dropping a knife in your foot hurts much worse than kicking something in the dark why you’re busting for a piss, but stubbing my toes is something I can readily relate to because I know how it feels.

“Nooo – Don’t!,” I quickly looked away shuddering with teeth clenched, squeezing my eyes shut as Moire bent Grampa’s body over and grasped the wooden knife handle – and pulled it out with a nasty ‘squeegee’ squelching noise, a horrible sound which made my nerves and muscles spasm with phantom pain, “Aaaaah!”

Small mercies, Grampa was out cold and dead to the world. He’d dropped off doing the ghostly light bulb thing and gone dormant shortly after reaching the kitchen, though it’s probably a bad thing Moire had been left in charge as it was tantamount to leaving someone who’s just graduated from their ‘L’ learners plates to a ‘P’ provisional driver’s permit, driving your car and causing a few dents in the bodywork.

Grampa’s Soul was still in his body as far as Fluffy and I could tell, but Grampa’s brief ‘out of body’ experience hadn’t lasted as his Soul’s burst of activity was something like putting current draw on an old rechargeable battery, that wasn’t able to hold a charge for very long. Sure Moire had carried out some desperately needed maintenance on Grampa’s Soul since taking up residence, but there’s only so much she could do because – you know, old battery.

“Nasty,” Fluffy agreed stoically, paws over his triangular ears and whiskers stiffened at the sucking sound as metal grating against flesh and ligaments, involuntarily baring his fangs in a grin, “Nyaa, I’m so glad I’m a cat and don’t have anything as pointlessly clumsy as a foot.”

My cat is hardcore – probably comes of all the rodents he’s hunted when we lived at the restaurant.

Okay, I unsqueezed my eyes and looked – bad idea since Moire was curiously holding up the knife with blood on the blade, and there was more blood welling out from the wound in Grampa’s foot and bleeding all over the linoleum. It’s not the kind of thing you want to see while you’re eating dinner, and I was feeling kind of ill and nauseous seeing all that blood – which is a lot different from the ‘lack’ of such sickening feelings while I’d been stuck in the simulation this morning, which needed a real live body to actually feel 

“Eww!,” I uttered a revolted whimper at the sight of blood, which pretty much sums up the difference between a simulation and reality as my stomach did flip flops, that killed off any appetite I might have had. 

A simulation is like a game, it isn’t real and just doesn’t have the punch in the gut nuances real life does. You see blood in a game or kill something in a sim, it’s less ‘OMG I KILLED Something’, and more like ‘Okay, the graphics look interesting and that was kinda fun’...it’s a whole blasé different outlook and a lack of feeling, because you know the situation isn’t real. 

What I was feeling now was real, and it took real effort to unclench my teeth and fight down the urge to upchuck at the bloody mess Moire was making on the kitchen floor with Grampa’s body...but then, it got worse, and even Fluffy lost his cool.

Fluffy and I knew the nanites in Grampa were in a replication stage, and were hungry for resources to continue multiplying until they reached critical mass to start the Grampa’s conversion into an Alteran – just like us. The cat and I had rationalised that since the both of us were alive and having dinner, it probably wasn’t as bad as it sounded like since we’d pretty much slept right through our conversion without even noticing it had happened a couple of days...

“Aaah!,” a round eyed Fluffy and I exclaimed as the red smears of blood on metal blade of the knife suddenly began ravenously devouring through the steel, and the knife turned into metallic blobs of silvery mercuric liquid which extruded confused wavy tentacles, which darted down the remaining wooden knife handle to puncture and merge with Grampa’s hand that was holding it – leaving only the wooden handle behind as the wounds the metal blob thing had caused sealed up the wounds behind it once it had gotten inside Grampa’s body.

Moire looked at the not disconnected wooden parts of the knife handle in Grampa’s hand in confusion – Squishies merge with each other all the time, it was just that the metallic nanite blob hadn’t ‘felt’ like a normal Squishy to her, and it was an out of context problem like white blood cells encountering a new virus for the first time.

“Aaah!,” the now very horrified orange cat and I looked down at the blood welling from Grampa’s wound in his foot, which began unnaturally closing up even as we watched. Little wavy tentacles of blood grasped the flesh to on either side of the knife wound and pulled it together, then began knitting it up without even leaving behind a scar...okay, we sort of knew Alteran medicine was capable of this, so no surprise the nanites inside Grampa could do it too – it was just that Fluffy and I hadn’t understood how graphic and fast it was.

However, there was blood left outside the closed wound on the linoleum which hadn’t been in the vicinity of Grampa’s foot, and the nanites swimming around in the blood which had dripped onto the linoelum had minds of its own and began disturbingly forming beads and flowing together into a main body which began waving around little flailing tentacles around...like aerials...then it went still, as it homed in on the kitchen table where Fluffy and I sat.

The fur on Fluffy’s back raised, and I could feel a similar crawling sensation going on with my hairs trying to do the same as we held our instinctively breaths at the unknown threat.

The...the ‘Thing’, suddenly scooted up the wooden table leg as the cat and I snatched up our rice bowls and jumped back from the alien blob paused on the table rim, where it waved its aerial sensor tentacles before orientating on the stainless steel pan containing dinner, the steamed chicken with ginger and shallot sauce Fluffy and I’d been eating from as a side dish to boiled rice.

“What the Fuck?!?,” Fluffy gasped, raising his ceramic rice bowl above his ears like he was about to throw it at the bloody tentacled...Thing.

A ‘mouth’ morphed open in the alien creature’s central torso, and a bloody thin whiplike tongue snaked out in a motion which looked suspiciously like it was licking its non-existent lips with relish. 

I don’t know whether it was rudimentary nanite communications or just intuition , but it occurred to me steamed chicken with ginger and shallot sauce was once of Grampa’s favourites, and Moire had neglected to make the body she was controlling eat anything for dinner while she was playing around Porssessing it.

“Hngh,” I made a strangled noise as the Thing paused to slaver over the steamed chicken dish.

Whatever was motivating the bloody blob found the chicken suitable for its dietary requirements, and it pounced on the side dish with tentacles flailing, ravenously ‘absorbed’ it pan and incorporated it all into its now larger disturbingly biological looking metallic form in a parody of some movie monster trope I’m sure I’d seen on TV before...then the blob turned it attention to Fluffy and I as it ‘stood’ up, and waved its now much larger sensory aerials at us as if considering the merits of absorbing a helping of young boy and cat for more resources.

I could feel my heart drumming in my chest as Fluffy and I retreated back a few steps, then realised what the ‘Thing’ was after, as I swallowed the lump of horror in my throat, “It’s...it’s a Chinese blob.”

It’s an Asian thing, us Chinese don’t find eating meat on its own very filling.

“Nya, not that hungry after all,” Fluffy said, the orange cat holding his bowl of rice over his head and I exchanged glances, then ingratiatingly and slowly put the bowls of half eaten rice on the floor which we’d saved from the Thing , making no with no sudden moves as the cat and I very carefully oozed away – Grampa always said that a meal without rice, just wasn’t complete.

The reddish metallic blob hopped off the table and pounced on the sacrificed bowls of rice, gobbling it up like a wild animal then licked the ceramic clean – seemed like ceramics were also on the non-edibles list too. 

Satiated with dinner, the blob sedately waddled off back to Grampa’s body.

Moire curiously watched the ‘Thing’ without moving Grampa’s body to avoid it – yep, that whole white blood cell being confused by a new virus thing as she sensed no hostile intent. The nanite semi-metallic blob hopped on Grampa’s foot and seemed to collapse in on itself as if Grampa’s body was sucking it inside...and then it as gone and the entry wounds sealed up behind it. 

There was a still silence.

I looked down at the uncomfortable hot wet stain spreading on the crotch of my tracksuit pants. 

Fluffy looked askance at my pants...then grinned up at me, “Well...that happened.”

I don’t know why this was so much more traumatising than anything else we’d experienced so far, but it just was.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” I said as I realised I was trembling, then promptly burst out in tears – hey, I’m a four year old, and real life stuff that crawls out of the woodworks is pretty terrifying. 

It’s the kind of upsetting horror that’s right up there with finding a large bug scuttling out from your stash of sweets you were saving for a rainy day, and you realise something precious has been lost as you run away screaming in revulsion. 

* * *

Trauma affects people in different ways.

Neither Fluffy or I had felt ‘fear’ since we woke up to the world around us a few days ago – we’d been startled, but it wasn’t the kind of debilitating fear which turns you into a basket case and makes you want to hide under the bed with the monsters for extra security from the unknown messing around inside your body.

Fluffy and I had scrubbed down extra hard in the bath after Moire cleaned up and steered Grampa to bed, but that pervasive nervous ill feeling of insecurity didn’t quite go away after a clean change of clothes, or a rub down and dry in Fluffy’s case. 

It’s a difficult feeling to describe, knowing some ‘Thing’ is inside you lying dormant, just biding its time and waiting to leap out when you weren’t watching...it was like a need to go find a bathroom all the time, or a small enclosed space in which to hide, though the watery urge to go becomes a torture since you don’t want to budge.

I didn’t like it.

It made me feel watery and shaky inside all over, which my imagination suggested were the nanites inside me doing stuff neither Fluffy nor I had the clearance to know about after we were booted out by the nanite’s Child Abuse Protocols.

The big fluffy orange cat had nervously stuck close to me after our horribly truncated dinner.

There was a psychological safety in numbers, even if it was just the two of us watching out for each other while trying to wash off the uneasy fear in Grampa’s absence – oh, we knew he couldn’t help us, but it would have been nice having an adult around. 

It would also have been more comforting if Snarf and Squee were with us too but we decided they were better off keeping watchin on Bethany least she go exploring on her own under her house to check on the Rat Bricks. The other Unnamed Squishies in the background whom were quietly roosting on the orange cat and I, and were roaming around in possession of the house, were on alert and on the lookout for strange trespassing monsters which might pose a threat.

It’s just that they didn’t seem to grasp that the ‘monsters’ were already inside Fluffy and I, and now Grampa whom were infected with the nanites.

The Squishies swarmed the rooms and corridors like tiny schools of agitated fish, their presence patrolling the environs of the house and grounds outside so thick, they caused moisture to condense and manifested in the visual spectrum as a chilly mist, which sent a paranoid Fluffy burrowing under the blankets with me.

I didn’t like it.

I didn’t like being scared.

Fluffy and I clutched each other as we fell asleep under the blankets, where once we closed our eyes and fell below the threshold of consciousness...the mist in our bedroom thickened and closed in on us to feed...

* * *

...3M0T10N 1D3NT1F13D...F34R...

...F34R 3MUL4T10N M0DUL3...3$T4BL1$H3D...

...1NPUT F34R 3MUL4T10N M0DUL3 INT0 $S1MUL4T10N...C0MPL3T3...

...$IMULAT10N R3$T4RT...3....2....1...

* * *

Fluffy woke up inside inside the Simulation with Miri poking at us, the fake cat eared redhead NPC looked relieved as the cat and I finall woke up and looked around on the tropical beach we’d been washed up on, after our ship had gone down.

“I’m so glad you two are okay,” Miri said, “You’re lucky we didn’t get separated when the ship sank in the storm.”

There was a pause...something was different about the dratted Sim.

Fluffy and I swivelled our heads back to stare blankly at each other as something welled up inside us, rather than the usual ‘distant’ meh feeling of feeling of grinding through the motions in a crappy game we’d become accustomed to, when we’d previously been trapped inside the sim this morning. Sure we’d felt desperation before, and we’d also felt something like revulsion...but we never truly felt Fear until now.

Fluffy and I screamed, then burst into tears – perfectly normal reaction which hadn’t happened to us so far inside the sim, for a terror stricken four year old and pet cat.

Immersion, really sucks.

* * *


	46. Save Point Reached - Jarhead...lots of space in here...

...Somewhere in the Matrix...

The one off external acquisition of resources and raw materials had vastly boosted the growth in nanites, that the already exponential growth in numbers of nanites had reached critical mass far sooner than it would otherwise have to deploy the Regent class upgrade package, that Benjamin Llewellyn Sung’s comatose body slumbering in bed underwent genetic conversion while Sammy and Fluffy had been taking their bath after dinner.

By the time the little boy and his cat had turned in to sleep, the nanite community within Benjamin had already carried out the final bioware checks on the Regent class neural upgrades and grossly improved and upgraded ‘Alteran’ combat chassis, and Benjamin’s body had metaphorically ‘died as his brain and body shut down during the conversion, then his new chassis rebooted the original Soul re-installed that the elderly Asian assumed a peaceful healing sleep...which didn’t last for long.

There was a chronic need for training and familiarization in the new capabilities in order to improve the odds of survival – the Survival Protocols were still very much in effect that the autonomously acting nanites continued to carry out their program, in the absence of a proper authority relieving them of the autonomous actions. 

Fortunately, Princeps and his orange furred Companion were just a short distance away, their bodies fitfully twitching and turning like they were both having an epileptic fit from the dreams they were caught up in, though in reality it was just their experiences within the time accelerated training simulation being processed into muscle memory that when the two woke up, the ‘experiences’ in the simulation training could be properly retained.

The Regent’s resident Ascended girlfriend had resisted Benjamin’s involuntary participating in the training regime though, and had only been grudgingly coaxed into co-operating by the promise of being injected into the Simulation alongside the Regent in an appropriately close relationship, where she could observe and interact with her Chosen as he underwent underwent training to bring him up to speed...well, if nothing else, the background filler source material the scenario the simulation was set in was at least imaginative.

Better still, the simulation offered a scenario that could potentially accelerate survival and military trainings required by a Regent tasked with protecting the Princeps...

The Regent’s newly constructed neural capabilities fired up and established a handshake with the Princeps and his Companion’s neural lace, synced with the current narrative of their training regime thus far and briefly accelerated the time dilations ratios to account for Benjamin’s own training regime, before bringing him into sync with the Princeps and Companion and injected Benjamin into the Survival Training Simulation scenario...

* * *

...N4N1TE C0NT1NG3NT, 100%...

...B4$1C C0NV3R$10N, C0MPL3T3...

...4LL $Y$T3M$ 0NL1N3...

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...RUN $1MUL4T10N – R3GENT P4CK4G3...

...RUNN1NG...

* * *

Benjamin Llewellyn Sung had been born in 1917 in Australia, had spent his childhood and teenage years living through the Great Depression, been caught up in the second world war which he talked very little about, and had been forced into marrying someone who was the definition of matrimonial misery, and whom had ruined him financially in the ensuing divorce...he understood hardship quite well.

For all that, he had managed to raise two sons, his eldest whom had gifted him a wonderful grandson to carry on the Sung family name...and a younger boy whom Benjamin was certain was the bastardly result of his former spouse’s infidelity, as he could not have physically sired the bastard himself – the timing just wasn’t right, even if he did feign ignorance rather than call out the bitch on it. In those days he still believed he had something to lose, and the loss of face outweighed the shame of cutting ties and opening up that festering wound for all to see...he was a damned fool, for believing such a vile disloyal creature could ever change her ways.

The lesson that some people are just innately not worth the effort of saving, had come at a very steep price for Benjamin when the divorce had robbed him of nearly everything he’d worked for, but the cottage in which he now lived. Perhaps such a betrayal would have broken a lesser man, but Benjamin had only barely managed to retain his sanity by convincing himself that...that it had been WORTH IT, to be rid of the millstone dragging him down to the bottomless depths of new misery.

It had been worth it...even though it took him years to heal with the best years of his life squandered away in a lie. His grandson Sammy had saved him, the boy and his pet cat had given Benjamin a reason to live again, to look out beyond the shell he’d built around merely existing.

And then he’d met his Moire, and knew that he’d been right all along about the price he’d paid for divorcing.

It HAD been worth it.

He’d finally met the One he was fated to be with, who filled all the empty places in his Soul he hadn’t even known existed. The person who made life interesting again and made his every breath fill him with vitality, not a drag of monotonous day to day existence where just getting out of bed was an effort for old bones to bear, but now had him waking up eager to find what a new day would bring.

In the waning years of his life, Benjamin Llewellyn Sung had finally come home.

A life without his Moire, just wouldn’t have been worth living...so it was a good thing that when Benjamin was injected into the strange and disconcerting Flash Gordon like world out of some Sunday newspaper science fiction comic strip, he was not alone. The friendly reptilian entity whom had grafted onto his Soul, had come along for the ride.

On the downside, Moire’s ‘Void Spawn’ presence marked Benjamin as a Psyker – and the local authorities of the Alteran City Core he’d landed upon had given him a stark choice of enlisting in the military where he may have an option of retaining Moire once his training was complete, or summary execution...Benjamin had chosen to enlist, as it really hadn’t been a choice at all. 

However, being branded as a Psyker was tantamount to being under a death sentence anyway,

After hearing about the hair raising short life expectancy of Psykers on the battlefield which sent Benjamin’s balding scalp crawling, he quite naturally quickly went looking for an alternative profession that would not put him in harm’s way, while still fulfilling the mandatory Psyker duties which the Alteran military seemed bent on forcing him to take up.

It had been with no small amount of panic as the military was about to rubber stamp his assignment to the tender mercies of Psykers training, that Benjamin’s eyes had fallen upon the rather descriptive role of ‘Librarian’ in the Space Marines, which sounded like a cushy rear end job tending to books, that he leapt and applied before the low browed military could shuttle him off to a Psyker City Core space station to get his mind melted and moulded into the required military form.

A quite relieved Benjamin Sung had been instead diverted off to the Space Marine’s Librarium City Core, where he presumed he would be trained in the fine art of maintaining the Dewey Decimal Index...that sense of having found a safe haven hadn’t lasted particularly long.

It turned out that Space Marine arm of the military, were a much feared ground assault component of the Exodus Fleet’s military contingent, being tasked with planetary assaults and rescues which normal troops would have considered suicidal at best, and an almost certain death sentence waiting to happen as the average Space Marine assault tended to be heavily outnumbered on the ground when they landed, that it was a wonder the organisation remained an all volunteer cadre of specialists with no shortage of willing recruits, waiting to step up to fill the ranks.

Oh, and ‘Librarians’ were the Space Marine name for their version of Psykers.

It probably says something uncharitable about the brutality of Space Marine basic training and its efficiency in breaking a person to remould the recruit to a desired form, that Benjamin was so traumatised by the experience of Space Marine boot camp and the ensuing Librarian indoctrination, that he managed to block out the whole sordid torturous event. 

Sure he could remember going through the training, but it mostly came back as PTSD flashes as body and mind were augmented and battered into submission...were it not for Moire, Benjamin did not doubt that he would have become just another slogan chanting automaton bent on exterminating the Xenos whom dare to threaten the Altera.

The next time he was consciously aware of his surroundings, he’d already graduated as a Librarian Lexicanium Noviciate and been assigned to a Space Marine chapter...he’d also been stuffed into a bulky suit of ‘medium’ power armour which qualified as a IFV on legs, as a prelude to a recon assault drop over a contested world on which a pinnace delivering a recon team to observe the primitive locals, had been shot down.

Then things went south, as the Battle Barge he’d been aboard suffered damage from some kind of unknown planetary defence system tentatively identified as Nekoron in origins, which sent Space Marine drop pods ejecting all over the place, willy nilly...

* * *

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...0VERRUL3D – C0NT1NU3 3V4LU4T10N...

* * *

...there was a pause in the moments after the landing impact, then the armoured drop pod’s door was ruthlessly kicked open.

Moire the Dragon poked her head out the opened hatch, then gave a hiss of all clear as Librarian Lexicanium Noviciate Benjamin Llewellyn Sung looked outside around the landing site, with bolt pistol at the ready for any surprises which might have been attracted by the re-entry and retro-rockets firing off, then ducked back into the pod to fetch his Sniper rifle.

“Fuck, I’m naked out here,” Benjamin muttered in the absence of any other drop pod’s retro-rocket passage scarring the sky save for his own...something had evidently gone horribly wrong as he gave his long arm a quick once over, “Where is everyone?!?”

It wasn’t usual for a Librarian to be armed with a sniper rifle, but it was the closest thing to the Lee-Enfield Benjamin was familiar with that he ended up choosing the slower firing long range weapon, over pure close and medium ranged firepower a bolter or plasma gun offered.

Also, being armed with a long ranged sniper weapon allowed Benjamin an excuse to stay back out of harm’s way and still be useful, rather than bear the brunt and dangers of close range combat. It also helped that Benjamin’s experiences with a Lee-Enfield had translated to sniping, that his choice of weapons and the ‘unorthodox’ camouflage paint job on his Space Marine armour wasn’t questioned.

First thing first - get as far away from the drop pod as possible, also set the self destruct sequence counting down which would turn the pod into so much metal slag. Moire led the way and Benjamin retrieved everything of use from the drop pod and stomped after her as the pod he arrived in turned itself into a puddle of unidentifiable metallic goo. 

Being alone in the middle of nowhere wasn’t Benjamin’s fault – as the newest, most junior and least experienced member of the Chapter, he’d been assigned dead last in the drop pod launch sequence.

It was a Standard Operational Procedure that the most senior or experienced members of the Chapter would survive in the mostly unlikely event something took out the Battle Barge...Benjamin had quite philosophically rationalised that going last into the assault, just meant more ablative meat shields between him and hostile AA fire – but then, the Battle Barge actually HAD been hit, and he’d been sweating out the seconds which dragged into ages in the ever so slow launch sequence.

“Command, what the Hell is going on up there?,” Benjamin made contact once he was far enough away from the drop pod, though he winced at the trail he’d left behind in his haste – subtly wasn’t a strong point of Space Marine medium armour. After a moment listening to the twitter and sitrep, Benjamin’s brow furrowed, “You’re kidding me...I’m on the wrong fucking conintent?!?”

Being last in the drop sequence, sucked – Benjamin decided grimly as the REMF twit twittering on the other end of the com rationalised in typical career bureaucrat bean counting why he couldn’t be extracted.

There was some back and forth, but Space Marine Command had acknowledged he was too distant to feasibly rejoin the rest of the Chapter to fight against the Nekoron, and the Chapter’s gunships were pre-occupied with ground support to be diverted for one lone Space Marine on the wrong side of planet, that Benjamin was re-assigned the independent mission of locating survivors of the shot down pinnace in his vicinity. 

After a moment consulting his map board to determine what was actually in his rather sparse area of operation, and marking way points he had to reach, Benjamin had the sneaking suspicion the Chapter had just written him off in the face of the greater Nekoron threat, as untried Noviciates Librarians were deemed somewhat expendable as compared to the ‘real’ veteran Space Marines...well, it was an easy starter mission away from the fighting.

“Well, at least I’m not getting shot at,” Benjamin shrugged, slapping on his fully enclosed helmet.

“Hssss,” Moire said agreeably as she deftly climbed up Benjamin’s camouflaged armour, to her customary place on Benjamin’s shoulder pauldrons as an extra pair of eyes looking out for threats.

Benjamin set off at a stomping jog to the first of his way points on his first mission as a Space Marine Librarian...

* * *

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* * *

There were pluses and minuses to the marvel of engineering and electronics that was the ubiquitous Space Marine medium armour, of which the amount of armour impervious to most things which didn’t qualify as an anti-armour weapon, certainly numbered amongst the pluses. 

The ability to manoeuvre freely like a man unencumbered by equipment was also a plus, as was the ludicrous amount of ammunition – which one could NEVER carry enough of – food and equipment one could carry on the strength of powered myomer muscles powered by a practically inexhaustible fusion cell, was also an attractive proposition as opposed to hauling around a much less amount of stuff on native grunt muscle power alone.

The popular image of those clean cut iconic recruitment posters of a lone Space Marine in power armour blazing away at Xenos with a bolter – something akin to a crew served automatic 40mm grenade launcher which only power armour made practical as a personal weapon – around the Fleet to draw in the rubes?

Total fiction.

Part of the reason why Space Marine Chapters could get away with stomping around on the battlefield in garish neon dayglo colours – idiotic in itself – was due the fact the brightly coloured ‘shoot here’ heraldry was obscured and buried under bandoleers of ammunitions and equipment, to the very limits of the power armour to carry and still move, the practical limits of which was actually constrained by the room in the drop pod. 

Yes, the inglorious reality was that the average Space Marine actually looked like a supply dump which had sprouted a pair of legs – a sort of de facto camouflage, the ablative effect of all that stuff festooning the outside surfaces of the actual plasteel composite armour to incoming hostile fire, wasn’t to be sneezed at either.

The other part of the reason why Space Marines could get away with the bright coloured armour scheme, was due the fact that EVERY MARINE in the Chapter was armed with a bolter of some kind...and the enemy had a penchant for keeping their heads down when being suppressed by hideously accurate streams of ballistic computed rocket propelled grenades. One Space Marine was a pretty destructive piece of work on par with a 20th Century Infantry Fighting Vehicle, but Space Marines tended to travel around in platoons for whole new definition of hurt.

The downside to this ability to take an artillery rounds to the chin and keep chugging along mostly unscathed, was that a Space Marine planetary assault drop had all the subtly of having a herd of pissed off elephants looking to go to town. You simply couldn’t hide the fact – and the pure stompyness of a Space Marine in medium armour leaves behind a trail you’d have to be blind not to see.

Giant footprints driven into the ground by as much as two or three tons of Space Marine who’re carrying related ammunition and supply stuff, tends to leave a pretty distinct impression where a platoon of them have gone. It’s why Space Marine Snipers and Scouts tend to go for ‘Light’ unpowered armour despite the much lesser protective value, for the simple reason it allows them to recon without leaving behind a path you could track from space.

Benjamin had still considered it an acceptable trade off – he wasn’t a scout, even if he was armed like one. There was also the fact the moment he fired the BFG he’d slung over his shoulder, anything that wasn’t dead, deaf or still alive after he failed to blow its head off would know he was out there, and he’d NEED the armour for the world of hurt about to drop on him. 

Artillery tends to fuck with Light armour and the person wearing it, much like it had any infantry since World War One made shell shock a thing – you really wanted to be in something more substantially armoured when the hammer fell, or better still, fast enough to book it out of the Area of Effect. A speed which a Space Marine in Medium power armour, could be sufficiently motivated to reach if they knew what was coming.

Those motivational posters scattered around the Fleet, with an iconic unencumbered Space Marine in medium armour standing firm with bolter blazing, while the countryside around them was plastered by artillery? 

Well, those kinds of dumb schmucks tend to die heroically rather quickly, despite the mitigating suit of power armour

Medium armour is good, but pound it enough and the man inside it can turn into the consistency of protein mush from the concussion effects, even if the suit itself survives – unless they’re Terminators in Heavy Assault Armour, armoured head to foot and ear to ear in which case they’re just too slow to run and too dumb to die.

The stompy mechanical loping run at which Benjamin travelled, ate up the kilometres to the waypoint.

It was actually like an autopilot, that Benjamin could set the destination and just let the power armour do the running without his conscious input while he kept watch for signs of threat. It wasn’t all that unusual for Space Marines to just doze off and let their suit navigate to where they needed to go – which could be hilarious if an enemy jumped in front of a running Space Marine and became stompy Nav kill, because the Space Marine mightn’t even notice if they were tired enough.

Since the Nekoron threat was on another continent, Benjamin had plenty of time to reflect on the brutal training and biological augmentations he’d undergone to become a Space Marine Librarian in this twisted reality, that was disturbingly American in its cultural penchant for continuous warfare where peace was an alien concept.

Just Why Was He Here?

* * *

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* * *

The escape pod from the down pinnace at the waypoint, wasn’t empty.

“Okay,” Benjamin wrinkled his nose as he stepped back as his mind made sense of what he was seeing, his bolt pistol aimed inside the interior of the pod at the odd white shape that wasn’t human, then looked askance at Moire on his shoulder as he took a deep breath, “The sad thing is, I can sort of relate to this.”

Moire blinked, then gave Benjamin a hard serpentine look, “Hssss?”

“Well, on second thoughts,” Benjamin pursed his lips with a slight shake of his head, and holstered his bolter pistol, “No, I can’t.”

“Hssss,” Moire agreed, placated, then snorted with amusement as she scrutinised the still body inside the pod.

“There’s probably a good reason for...that,” Benjamin turned away from the pod and took a deep breath, looked up at the sky with a perplexed frown, and threw up his hands as he turned and walked away from the pod, shaking his head, “Heck with it, I don’t understand people, either.”

“Baaa Baaa,” the inflatable sheep inside the pod said.

“Hssss,” Moire commented.

“Yeah, don’t want to think about it,” Benjamin blew his breath out, “My subconscious keeps on saying sleeping with a inflatable sheep could’ve been me...never mind, you’d have to be married to a monster to understand what I’m getting at – some things are worse than Hell.”

“Hssss!,” Moire protested.

“You’re not a monster. Trust me, you aren’t,” Benjamin replied shaking his head at the inhuman beckoning electronic baaa baaa calls, as he trudged away to the next waypoint on his map board, “Monsters can only exist where there are humans to create them, you Squishies are just innocent bystanders caught up in the human condition.”

“Hssss,” Moire briefly turned back to the pod as her inhuman eyes saw something she didn’t like, then casually opened her mouth and despite her small diminutive size, the wall of plasma which emerged to wash over the pod promptly vaporised it into so much dispersing particles.

Benjamin instinctively ducked, glanced back a moment and shrugged, “Well – when you look into the abyss, sometimes you find something monstrously human looking back at you.”

Moire snorted at the mind fuckery going on behind the scenes, satisfied that she’d eliminated a threat to her host.

* * *

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* * *


	47. Save Point Reached - Rookie Mistakes...training for overkill means you're going to overkill...

...Somewhere in the Matrix...

A funny thing happened to Benjamin Llewellyn Sung in the aftermath of stabbing himself with a crystal sliver of nanites...he woke up in a dystopian science fiction space opera filled with aliens and giant city sized space ships, and he’d spent what seemed like years studying to be a Space Marine Librarian Noviciate, in the most brutal and inhumane training regimes ever devised by some of the sickest war scarred veteran psychopaths whom got to fulfil their wet dream of acting out their fantasies on unsuspecting recruits, in the knowledge that Alteran medicines could repair almost any injury short of permanent death.

Benjamin imagined the regime which he and his fellow trainees had been subjected to as Space Marine recruits, would have been something very much like what the boot camp Drill Instructors on Paris Island beat off to in their darkest unmentioned moments for stress relief during the Vietnam years, when they had to rubber stamp the low IQ draftees known as McNamara’s Morons, fit for frontline duty.

The Space Marine Drill Instructors had done there level best to kill everyone in a permanent fashion, in the oddly reasonable rationale that those who fucked up in training, wouldn’t get ‘real’ Space Marines killed out in the field. Sure it was drastic to wash out in a body bag, but Benjamin had found himself agreeing with the policy that every Space Marine who wore the armour was a frontline bolter carrier first, second and last...or maybe, it was just that Benjamin had caught on early that going against the grain of the organisation was liable to get him killed.

Space Marines, or marines of any kind for that matter, seemed to have that brainwashed borderline certifiable Soviet level of indoctrinated unquestioning loyalty towards their organisation, which less traumatised normal military types seem to lack...then again, the kind of mentality required to assault a beach head required a mildly deranged person to begin with.

There’s nowhere to run in a cramped metal coffin be it a Drop Pod or a sea going assault craft, slowly crawling towards the beach head like so many flies walking across the plate where the enemy is armed with a can of fly spray.

It was small wonder, that Benjamin had blanked out somehow during that traumatising training, and only recent come back to himself with a new set of memories where he remembered undergoing such privations he’d never imagined himself capable of, and coming out mostly intact.

Just how much was left intact, well...

* * *

Benjamin had gone up against robotic Dau power armour during training enough times, to have developed a healthy respect for lizards in armour, so when he ran into a patrol of the reptilian enemy of the Alterans whom were under EMCON (Emissions Control) while autonaving across the planetary countryside, he might have over reacted just tad in the best training of trigger happy Marines since history began.

Benjamin’s bolt pistol practically leapt into his left hand from its holster, and a vibro-blade which practically qualified as a short sword materialised in his right from its sheath strapped to his armoured chest – while Benjamin was right hand dominant, he’d learned that shooting with his left while wielding a knife with his right hand in close quarters combat was more...efficient. Benjamin reacted as he’d been trained by the Space Marines, his Psyker abilities slowing down the world as his senses accelerated to the point it felt like he was floating in a world gone still and silent, that he immediately noticed something off – the Dau were armoured in primitive bone and metal scale armour, and their weapons comprised of primitive swords, spears and axes – nothing powered?

It didn’t stop Benjamin, though, there were eight surprised looking Dau with literal axes to grind, and they were a designated Enemy, so Benjamin reacted as he’d been trained to – maim, incapacitate and kill.

Benjamin’s bolt pistol spat out five rounds as fast as he could squeeze the trigger while using his forward momentum to close in at the surprised group of reptilians whom were only beginning to respond to him crashing amongst them through the foliage, the rocket propelled rounds were still accelerating due the short distance when the rounds impacted on the heads of five of the Dau...which to Benjamin’s muted surprise, the explosive rounds detonated and blew the heads of the Dau he’d aimed at clean into bone fragments and pink bloody mistlike their protective head coverings were little more than thin sheet metal.

Which, a stunned part of Benjamin whispered insidiously, they were – these Dau weren’t wearing power armour like the training dummies he’d practiced against.

The ease with which those five Dau became headless dead meat threw Benjamin off his pace, as his follow up with the vibro-blade was unnecessary. However, the momentum and mass of his power armour couldn’t be negated, that Benjamin had to follow through once he was committed – the high frequency vibration of the blade was designed to penetrate ceramic composite plasteel armour, and it glided through thin medieval metal armour, scale, muscle and bone with about as much resistance as water with the speed of his strikes that Benjamin’s momentum continued to barrel on unabated as the headless corpse slowly flew apart in multiple pieces Benjamin’s wake.

That was a big problem, there was no resistance – and the power armour foes Benjamin had been trained against would have offered something to check his careening momentum.

Three and something tons of Space Marine armour with attached supplies and ammunition, continued to float down and Benjamin alighted on his left leg which turned into a stumble, even as he shifted just enough to fire three rounds from his bolter pistol at the three surviving Dau while wondering where to go from there as he really didn’t need to deal with the original five Dau whose heads were now so much pink mist and bone fragments. 

Benjamin was still dithering on where to go when the resistance on his left stompy foot committed him to pivot awkwardly into a leaping kick at the second headless corpse which should have been still alive were it in power armour...which it wasn’t, and rather than send the body flying at the three surviving Dau whom he’d shot centre mass to bleed off some of that forward momentum – the bolter pistol rounds literally ripped the three surviving shocked and horrified Dau in half – the dead headless Dau’s chest caved in, folding and splattered gorily around the Space Marine armour’s big stompy foot.

The shocking ease with which the eight Dau became dead meat now threw Benjamin completely off badly enough, that he tripped over the corpse wrapped around his right foot and sent him crashing into the still reacting reptilian bodies which were in the process of dropping dead as nothing so far had offered much in the way of tangible resistance to his forward momentum. It jarred him sufficiently that Benjamin lost control of his Psyker ability and the world abruptly speeded up as he found himself crashing head over heels into the surrounding plant life on his inertia, with parts of dead Dau flying everywhere as he bounced, rolled and crashed through the foliage until he finally hit a tree trunk. 

The tree canopy was brought crashing down on Benjamin as he at last came to a stop.

Benjamin paused in shock as blinked through the leaves in front of his face plate at the wreckage his passage had torn through the local plant life in the sudden shocking quiet. 

Things had not gone to script as per training – he really hadn’t expected to kill all the Dau on the first pass after running into them as power armour isn’t that fragile, but the fact he had, had thrown him off so badly he’d frozen while going through the motions of his training – which was a damn silly thing to do when one is encased in three and something tons of suit and supplies.

On reflection, Benjamin mused grimly at his first ‘real’ combat experience and subsequent survival, the Dau weren’t running EMCON either, their equipment looked downright medieval and didn’t appear like they had any electronics on them.

Which was why the suit sensors hadn’t detected anything and he’d run into them – the suit couldn’t tell them from an of the other generic animals running around, Benjamin smiled thinly to himself as he checked his suit integrity diagnostics under the anonymity of his fully enclosed helm. Damn, but he’d screwed up by the numbers – he’d been trained to go up primarily against POWER ARMOURED foes...’Crunchies’ like generic infantry? “I’m too fucking overpowered...”

That’s what the rest of the military were for – the ‘Muddies’ could deal with the pesky bug splatters – Space Marines were monsters because they were tasked with taking monsters down. 

The irony was, if he’d been dropped along with the rest of the Space Marine Chapter against the Nekorons on the right continent, he’d be going up against an enemy environment he was actually TRAINED and EQUIPPED for.

“Hssss,” Moire interrupted as she bounced excitedly on Benjamin’s right pauldron, apparently having enjoyed the ride through the undergrowth – Squishies were apparently immune to physical impacts, which was nice to know.

Benjamin turned his head and looked at the happily hissing dragon in a daze at how wrong things had gone, then a thought occurred to him as he reached up over his shoulder to his sniper rifle...well, it survived about as well as one would expect, having three and something tons of medium armoured Space Marine and stuff land on it. 

The elderly Asian Space Marine Librarian Noviciate stared blankly into the distance a long moment as he reflected on the fuckup, then vented loudly at the chain of events which led up to this incompetence, “FUCK!”

Losing one’s primary weapon this early in the mission, was less than ideal.

It was also damned embarrassing for a rookie Space Marine to lose his primary weapon on his first planetary assault.

* * *

As Benjamin trudged away in a rather more wary fashion than let his suit’s autonav computer run him to the next nav point, he briefly considered the prospect of requesting an orbital resupply drop. However, after listening to the frantic chatter and general lack of progress on the Nekorons on the continent not quite on the other side of the planet, he figured that the Battle Barge would probably just put the request on backorder as the Quartermaster had their hands full just keeping the Space Marines in the field topped up – those bolters on full auto fire ate a prodigious amount of ammunition. 

Even with the downright hideous carrying power of Space Marine medium power armour, there was NEVER ENOUGH ammunition to go around, to feed what amounted to an automatic grenade launcher. Space Marines generally took a dim view of being referred by the Army as ammunition for orbital artillery – but keeping the planetary assault forces on planet supplied from the Battle Barge had been high on the minds of Space Marine logistics given their choice of weaponry.

In the end, Benjamin just hadn’t bothered, his bolter pistol side arm was already overkill if the Dau he’d encountered were anything to go by. Nothing on this side of the planet short of a Nekoron waking up and revealing its presence with the usual mindless ‘I Hate Life’ morning after rampage, could so much as scratch him...

* * *


	48. Save Point Reached - What has Pest Control got to do with Sanity?

...Somewhere in the Matrix...

When the space faring Alda and the Dau crash landed on the planet in some distant age, after shooting each other down in one of their historic territorial squabbles, they inadvertently woke up the slumbering Nekoron presence on the planet with their technologies...not all surprising, given the amount of bombs they dropped on it. 

From a Nekoron poit of view, it was much like having two tribes of antagonistic roof rats taking up residence overhead in the ceiling, and having a loud and noisy territorial fight filled with high pitched ear grating electronic squeaks, and thumps and bumps banging away keeping one awake and staring nervously at the ceiling.

Try as the Nekoron might to ignore the noisy infestation above their heads, in the vain hope it might all just go away, eventually some enterprising rodents made it downstairs where they lived and began gnawing on the food and furniture...it was not an unreasonable reaction for any house owner, that enough was quite enough, and the ancient mechanical monstrosities decided to do something about exterminating the rodent problem, to regain some peace and quiet.

The Nekorons did a pretty good job annihilating the reptilian Dau and felinoid Alda back to the stone age in that distant past, where it seemed that all signs of life had been thoroughly exterminated that the planet once again returned to the peace and tranquillity of a pest free household...and then the Nekoron went back to bed, with the expectations and peace of mind of at last having some peace a quiet while they slept.

However, the problem with rodents is that if you don’t manage to kill them all, they breed like, well, rodents and can recolonise your home very quickly. 

In short order the squeaky infestation is once again taking over your house and life, that before you know it, it’s once again causing you a great deal of psychological anguish as they thump away in the roof and the walls in the still of the night, while you nervously stare around your room with a nervous violated feeling, waiting for the next sound to indicate where the pesky creatures are doing their thing...which somehow never quite comes when you expect it to, and that’s all the more grating on your sensibilities.

Put in that perspective, the encrypted planetary communications between the Nekoron becomes oddly relatable in context of a desperate house owner with a pest control problem that’s slowly driving them nuts...

* * *

...ringring...ringring...ringring...

Professional voice, “Hello? This is C-Tahn Pest Control Services, the industry leader in pest control, how may I help you, Sir?”

Distraught Nekoron, “Oh, thank the Old Ones! I need to book an extermination service, I can hear It running around on the surface on my continent! It’s driving me nuts with its high frequency radio squeaks!”

Professional voice, “I See. Can you describe the nature of the, ahem, infestation? How long have you been hearing these squeaky frequencies?”

Distraught Nekoron, “It’s only been in the last few days, I can hear it moving around up there on the surface, squeaking with radio chatter. It’s probably the same problem as the last time, before long they’re going to be thumping and banging away again! (sob) I thought I’d gotten rid of all of them the last time!”

Professional voice, calm and understanding, “Well, it’s that time of the Epoch. Pest species are moving around looking for planets to shelter and breed on. They’re attracted green places, have you cut back the forests on your continent lately? The pests are quite adept at infesting places with trees, and getting into your continent through the tiniest cracks in your defence grid.”

Distraught Nekoron, with guilty conscience, “I – I think I may have been a little behind in that aspect of good continent maintenance. It’s been a few millennial since I’ve bothered with exterminated the plant life on the surface, and the defence grid may have, ahem, been neglected a little. Is that how It got onto my continent?”

Professional voice, “It’s likely, Sir, and I would say ‘Them’ rather than ‘It’. Pest species very seldom appear as individuals, if you can hear one chattering away on radio frequencies, then there’s probably more which have built a nest on the surface.”

Distraught Nekoron, “...”

Professional voice, “Are you there, Sir?”

Distraught Nekoron, “But – but there’s only One. I’m sure there’s only one, there’s only the one squeak I’ve heard and it’s moving around up there on the surface!”

Professional voice, grave and assuring, “I’m afraid not, Sir. Why, just over on the continent next door, your neighbour called us in to check on a few recent radio frequency squeaks, and we found his entire continent was infested with proto-squeakers. It’s a major infestation, why, there’s four distinct different pest species all on the same continent, and at least one of them is so aggressive we’ve had to deploy a few legions of our finest C-Tahn pest controllers on the ground!”

Distraught Nekoron (gasps in horror), “That – that scumbag assured me there was nothing up there on the surface a millennia ago! I’ll – I’ll Sue, if that’s where the pest infiltrating my continent came from!”

Professional voice, “Collecting may be difficult, the Overlords will dismiss any damages claims as an act of nature. The nests of proto-squeakers up on the surface of your neighbour’s continent were at a pre-technological level, and it’s common knowledge they are very quiet at that phase of development, and many unsuspecting Nekoron never even suspect they’ve got an infestation problem.”

Distraught Nekoron, “Okay, okay...how much?”

Professional voice, “We have a special going for 400,000 Nekodollars on a premium service.”

Distraught Nekoron, choking at the sum, “Fuck. Off.”

Professional voice, in a reasonable ‘used Monolith’ hard sell, “It’s a good premium value service, Sir. Your planetary neighbourhood has been listed as a high risk infestation area, and we in C-Tahn Pest Control guarantee peace of mind to remove those squeaky problem running around on your surface.”

Distraught Nekoron, “For 400,000 Nekodollars, I can buy bait and traps until the next Eon.”

Professional voice, smooth and convincing, “Ah. Baits and traps are only of limited effectiveness, the squeakers soon learn to avoid them and then you’ll be out those Nekodollars and still be calling for Professional help, only by that time they’ll be running around in your Crypt causing all kinds of expensive damage.”

Distraught Nekoron, rather cool after hearing the price, “Let...let me think about it. I’ll call you back when I’ve made up my mind.”

Professional voice, “As you wish, Sir. We in C-Tahn await your order for our industry leading Pest Control Services. Thank you for enquiring.”

Click.

Distraught Nekoron, pausing for long moment, “Fuck that for a joke, there’s only one of the squeaking buggers running around up there – a few baits and traps should kill it off.”

* * *

...N0T3...TH4T W4$ B1Z4RR3...

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...C0NTINU3...

...RUN C0R3 $1MUL4T10N...

* * *


	49. Save Point Reached - If your feel the burn, a hot bath might fix the urge to set things on fire...

...Somewhere in the Matrix...

“There’s a fishing village up the coast an hour walk away,” Miri said, coming back from scouting the coastal area we’d washed up on, “They’re Alda and there’s an inn there we can stay at.”

Fluffy and I stared flatly at the freshly washed and clean cat eared redhead woman whom had obviously taken an hour or maybe two out to attend to personal hygiene while she’d been wandering around the countryside

The cat and I looked at each other with the bemused aggrieved looks of unwashed tired and dirty males who’d spent the bulk of their day labouring strenuously to build a shelter with limited tools and manpower, limited to one small four year old child and a not terribly helpful cat, while their responsible adult female minder went traipsing off into the woods on a self appointed mission to scout out the lay of the land...

Fluffy and I slowly exchanged grins of people whom had been grossly screwed over by circumstances, then glanced over our shoulders at the crude lean to we’d spent day since washing up on the beach building, which the cat eared woman just said was no longer necessary.

“Well, fuck,” Fluffy said after a long moment, listening to the sound of the crashing waves washing on the beach, which seemed all too loud like a hollow roaring in the backdrop of an abused cat screaming silently, then with forced calm, “You up for a walk, Sam?”

“Sure, Fluffy. I’ll be right with you,” I sang lightly in a piping innocent four year old’s voice and feigned innocent smile as I pressed my hands together in a parody of prayer, “Let me just set fire to the nice warm shelter we bled and toiled most of a day building, and never got to use.”

“I hear you, friend,” Fluffy nodded with feline dignity, fangs bared as I deliberately assembled my ‘Flashlight’ with agitated clicks, with the kind of destructive relish of a four year old discovering his inner pyromaniac, “We’ll be right with you, Miri.”

“You can just leave it,” Miri said, grasping what the cat and I intended after we retrieved what little supplies we’d managed to salvage after washing up on the beach.

“No,” Fluffy and I growled in reply.

Okay, maybe I’m being cynical and put out, being tired, hungry and mildly pissed we’d lost the bulk of our loot and supplies, which was now sitting on the bottom of a simulated sea after getting simulated shipwrecked, but sending Miri skipping off to recon what was around us seemed like such a logical and reasonable idea a few hours ago, on account of the fact she looked like one upright eared faction of the locals and could blend in.

The somewhat bedraggled orange cat and I laughed with fangs bared in a mildly deranged fashion as I happily wasted a charge on my Flashlight, lighting up the ready made bonfire which blazed up merrily from the driftwood and leaves we’d collected and assembled into a shelter, that reflected in our eyes like there were malevolent orange blazing fires dancing from within our sockets.

I can really relate to setting fire to stuff – it’s really cathartic, to just burn the shit out of your frustrations, than suck it in and pretend the effort and energy wasn’t completely wasted. Perhaps it’s not a mature adult reaction, but I’m a four year old and I’m told kids my age are prone to temper tantrums when things don’t go our way.

Fluffy and I skipped away on tippy toes along the sand from the burning hovel with heads held high, confident that our manly male pride was assuaged as a bemused Miri led the way to the village and promised shelter with prospects of a waiting hot bath.

In a chaotic world which was out of our control, it felt good to burn down a small piece of it and own it.

* * *

Fluffy sighed with bliss as he wiggled on my lap and leaned into a more comfortable position, using me as a meat cushion against the wooden tub we’d borrowed. We were staying at an old fashion rustic inn we were staying at for the evening, and our room which Miri had negotiated for us to stay in was dimly lit by simulated candles.

The simulated hot water relaxed our simulated muscles which had been pushed beyond their simulated strengths and seep into our simulated cold bodies, soothing the simulated aches and pains away in that most glorious of inventions, even if it was simulated – the hot bath.

Sure we had to lug the water from the inn’s well to fill the tub which the inn normally used for washing clothes and linen, which took a few round trips of hard strenuous work while Miri was entertaining the tavern with news of the outside world in return for the room we were staying at. The cold water was heated by getting the inn’s kitchen to warm up some fist sized hot rocks which were kept for the purpose of warming up water, and then running back and forth using a ladle to transfer the hot rocks to the wash tub like an egg race where the hot rocks were dropped in with accompanying hisses of steam, until the steadily heating water reached a comfortable temperature...but it had been worth it.

Nothing beats a hot bath, after you’ve been shipwrecked.

“I can feel the dried itchy salt melting away from my skin,” I said, gently rubbing the big orange cat to loosen the debris and salt clinging to his fur, “Funny how nobody mentions how much dried seawater itches in the story books.”

“That’s because, those stories are supposed to be adventures meant to appeal to readers with their buff machismo overcoming challenges,” Fluffy commented, luxuriating with half lidded bliss as I groomed him in the bath, “Not some pampered cream puff moaning about how it itches in unmentionable places.”

“Oh. Yeah. That,” I pressed my lips together at the sideways implied insult from the cat, “Something’s changed since the last time we were here. Things feel more...urgent.”

“Yep, I felt that too,” Fluffy’s triangular orange ears flattened a moment, then sprang back up alert as he tilted his head back to look up at me, “Before, we didn’t really ‘feel’ fear in here. It was a distant thing which didn’t have any weight, sure you felt surprise at things but it didn’t have any punch behind it. The emotional reactions were delayed, a distraction from suspension of belief, like those spaghetti westerns having off lip sync which broke immersion. There’s no distance to it now, it’s just like real life and the weight of all that emotional baggage dragging you down about the same.”

“It’s like the simulation we’re stuck in is evolving better ways to manipulate us,” I ruffled Fluffy’s tummy fur with comfortable hot water and watching his orange fur float in the water, “You noticed the mechanoid swarming on the continent next door, seemed to be gradually evolving from ‘smash everything now’ to ‘smash this first’ over time while we were over there?”

Fluffy nodded, paused scrubbing fur as he mentally chased down an idea which lurking on the edge of his consciousness like a mouse, then he went still as I helped him wash the dried sea salt out of his fur without any soap on hand to help, and the cat metaphorically pounced on the elusive prey nibbling on his thoughts, “They’re...learning...from us.”

“Hmm?,” I asked as the cat suddenly stood up on his hind legs, sending hot bath water sloshing over the end of the tub and onto the wooden plank floor. The cat looked around our dingy candle lit room with a disconcerted sense of growing epiphany, “What’s wrong?”

“This...this...I KNOW this,” Fluffy moved to the edge of the tub and placed his wet paws on the rim as he stopped and focused on the candles in the room with a mesmerised cat look as he saw the light of enlightenment reflecting of his feline eyes, “I’ve been here before!”

“I don’t remember it,” I took the opportunity to dunk my head into the bathwater and scrub my hair now the cat was no longer occupying my lap, “I’m pretty sure I’d have remembered a medieval hole in the wall like this.”

“I know this!,” Fluffy abruptly turned to me with wide eyes, “It’s using pieces of our memories to build this simulation! Everything here is something we’ve either seen or experienced before – the nanites can’t simulate something we don’t know!”

“So?,” I replied with a four year old’s instant dismissal of something that wasn’t of immediate concern.

“Because the nanites can only build on what’s inside us!,” Fluffy declared confidently, thumping his chest with wet squelches, as lunged over to me and put his paws on my shoulders, “Everything in this sim, is built on knowledge we have or imagined!”

I pondered, and failed to grasp how my imagination could conjure up such a dystopian world as the one we were stuck in...I’m more of a fluffy animals frolicking in green meadows kind of boy, I always wanted a cute little bunny - preferably a dumb one who doesn’t talk back like the cat does, “Can’t see it.”

“Try harder,” Fluffy’s sharp claws prickled my skin as he shook me feverishly with fangs bared as he breathed down on me, “This inn – it’s a mish mash of that rundown mah-jong dive Grampa took us to in the city with those old people, and the local watering hole down the street from the restaurant, remember? Work with me!”

“Ow ow – claws! Ow – okay already, I’ll play,” I yelped in an uncool fashion, making the aggressive orange cat relent and sit down in the tub, and stare at me expectantly with cat like concentration as I worked on remembering the vague pre-Awakening recollections the cat was referring to, “Okay, suppose this simulation really is working off our imagination and memories. How the heck did we come up with the background story of the Alterans, or the Alda and the Dau, then?”

“It’s an amalgam of things all mashed together, like this inn was based dimly on things you and I’ve experienced before,” Fluffy said sagely, pressing his wet paws together emphatically, “The Alterans are obviously built from your subconscious need for a human hero species, and my opinion you apes are a bunch of lunatics with a penchant for fucking up salvageable situations – “

“Hey,” I protested, but the cat continued on with feverish – the wet cat look has that kind of effect – look of feline obsession chasing down prey.

“ – the Alda are obviously MY subconscious creations if the cat ears weren’t a dead giveaway, and they’re big and humanoid because like it or hate it, I’m familiar with a human dominant world,” Fluffy wiggled his hears atop his head, taking a moment to scratch his chin thoughfully, “Which probably explains why the Alda act like a bunch of unrepentant dicks in the worst of human traditions throughout history, and since they’re competitors, I wouldn’t mind kicking their tails if they get too sniffy around my stuff. Cats squabbling over territory are bad, but have nothing on what you apes do to each other over land on a regular basis – “

“We aren’t that bad,” I said, not too convinced of it myself – I’m literate and can read history, that I find it a wonder that adults seem to be wilfully ignorant of the stuff they write down for us kids to read.

“ – and the Dau are...reptiles...okay, I’m probably going out on a limb here, but it probably has something to do with my subconscious acting up with Moire moving in and possession Grampa’s house I use to have free run on. I use to hunt lizards in the garden, and I’m not happy with the turn around,” Fluffy’s eyes narrowed in deep thought, nodding to himself, “It’s a cat thing, we tend to be a sensitive when hungry supernatural predators go swimming around under the wallpaper and plasterwork. It reminds us we’re a food group to some creatures, and that makes the fur on our back stand on end when it’s living inside our home. I suppose I’ll get use to the idea of Moire living with us sooner or later, but I’m not going to be too surprised if I’m standing in a warm puddle if she sneaks up on me when I’m going to the bathroom at night either...anyway, it’s probably why we also can’t communicate too well with the Dau who’re like an cultural brick wall, as opposed to the Alda.”

“I like Moire,” I said flatly, “I’m happy Grampa has a girl...um, friend.”

“As a light snack,” Fluffy snorted, shooting a half lidded look at me, “You know I’m right.”

It was disturbing food for thought, and the cat was probably right about the origins of the source material the simulated combatants were created from.

“By that logic, the Nekoron would be our subconscious impression of the nanites, which makes a disturbing kind of sense,” I ruminated, wrinkling my nose after considering the list of latent phobias I’d been traumatised by while living at the restaurant, “But there’s not quite enough phobias crawling out of the woodworks and trying to eat out our sanity from under us – I’m just not that scared of the Dau or the Alda, they’re just not very threatening like an endless flood of ravenous flesh devouring bugs, or the hordes of hungry giant rats would.”

“You are one sick four year old,” Fluffy shuddered, bowing his head and holding his paw up to stop me mouthing off other terrible possibilities, “But you do see where I’m going with this? This simulation is the result of the nanites rummaging through our memories, and tossing them up together like a mixed salad.”

“Okay, so what? We’re both still stuck in here,” I shrugged, “What difference does it make?”

“Knowing the mind of the enemy, is halfway to winning the battle,” Fluffy said sagely as he immersed himself up to the chin in hot water, then laughed in a high pitched catty way that reminded me of that Felix the Cat cartoon on TV.

“So...we’re completely screwed because the nanites know us inside out?,” I asked, which made the laughing cat choke and splutter in mid laugh, “Oh, you didn’t think about that, huh?”

Just then, Miri scratched on the door and poked her head in, “I’ve borrowed some towels you can use to dry off – don’t throw the bathwater out, we’ll need it to wash our clothes so they can dry tonight while we’re sleeping.”

“Hai!,” I sang as the cat eared redhead brought the towels in and a plate of rehydrated Rat Brick cake for dinner, and placed it on one of the two straw pallets covered by blankets which served as a bed as there weren’t any tables in the Spartan room.

“Don’t soak too long, I smell pretty bad and need to wash too before the water gets too cold,” Miri said as she sniffed at herself and wrinkled her nose at the odour wafting up from her dirty clothes.

“Here?,” Fluffy stiffened with trepidation.

“Where else?,” Miri asked as she picked at a piece of Rat Brick and popped it in her mouth, then looked amused, “Oh, you two must be shy about seeing a naked Alda woman.”

“Nuh-uh, it’s not that,” I shook my head, having seen Bethany in the bath a few days ago and not been terribly impressed with the missing plumbing when Fluffy and I’d satisfied our curiosity as to what was so different about girls, “Fluffy’s got a real sensitive nose. He barfed out the window at the horrible foot odour when I took my boots off. I had to rinse my boots and socks with hot water in a bucket, and hang them outside the window before Fluffy could come back inside to take a bath.”

“We’d like to evac for the safety of my sense of smell before you take anything off, especially the boots which I can tell are pretty ripe from here,” Fluffy nodded, sticking his tongue out and shuddered, “No offence meant, but stinky human feet really lingers inside a cat’s nose, made my eyes water – felt like passing out when it hit my sinuses.”

“Hmm,” Miri looked disappointed at our response, as Fluffy and I helped each other wash up so we could evacuate the room when Miri took her boots off to attend to her own personal hygiene, and continue our interesting philosophical conversation outside under the open simulated night sky.

* * *

Under the same simulated night sky...

A paranoid Distraught Nekoron finished setting up the timer activation to the pop up traps it had scattered all over the landscape of its continent to deal with the vermin running around, and tip toed back to its crypt to await the traps to start going off...the infestation on the long neglected surface of the continent was much much worse than it had even ever suspected, and in addition to the pop up traps, it had repaired the intermittent operating planetary particle whip which now interdicted the sky over the continent...

* * *


	50. Save Point Reached - The Terrible Truth about Tutorial Mode...

...Somewhere in the Matrix...

“CreeEEeep...CReeEEeep...cREEeeeep..cReeE – SNAP! CRACKLE!! POP!!!”

The ambulatory spiky green plant plodding along on appendages with sensory tentacles waving about looking for food, suddenly leapt up and assumed heroic poses of penultimate pain like an electrocution victim as the alien plant was exposed like it had been x-rayed, its internal organs illuminated by eldritch glowing green energies, then it suddenly swelled up like a balloon as internal vapour pressure from fluids turning into steam inflated it from within. 

The hapless bloated Creep popped with a flash, as the web of energies which briefly connected it to the mysterious ominously green glowing artefact which had popped out of the ground overnight, overwhelmed its molecular cohesion.

The Nekoron electronic vermin trap – what other lesser races would describe as an automated sentry turret, settled back down to an inert looking pile of granite blocks after its discharge of potent green life destroying energies, resetting itself for the next victim to wander within its arc of gauss accelerated particles that visually appeared to resemble tendrils of green lightning.

All over the continent waking up to a new morning, unsuspecting victims woke up and wandered out looking for breakfast, to be greeted by an ominous SNAP! CRACKLE!! POP!!! that had nothing to do with jingoistic elves advertising a Rice Bubbles commercial to early risers...

* * *

Benjamin Llewellyn Sung observed the small fishing village populated by Alda, which was comprised of no more than seven buildings gathered around what looked to be a tavern or an inn. Benjamin was familiar with such establishments from the days when he use to frequent such places to meet with drinking buddies, though after his hellspawn of an ex-wife had made off with the bulk of his fortune and assets in the acrimonious divorce, he’d become something of a hermit by financial necessity.

After some careful observation at a distance with his helmet magnifier, Benjamin was fairly sure that at least one survivor from the down pinnace the Battle Barge he’d been on had been sent to investigate, was in the fishing village – beside a pair of the local Alda thigh length leather boots, he could see a pair of small child sized boots and socks hanging out a window which were of standard Alteran military pattern.

While Benjamin wasn’t a big fan of assigning children to shipboard duties, it was something of an unofficial practice amongst the Fleet to keep family groups together when they formed, even on vessels as small and cramped as a pinnace as breaking up families would invite more dissent than was worth the effort. A child could be raised to adulthood, without spending any significant time on a City Core.

After some dithering, Benjamin decided that rather than try for stealth – which was rather difficult in big stompy Space Marine medium armour boots which caused rather wince worthy thuds with every step – he would just march to the window where the little boots were hanging out and see who the owners were...okay, it was counter to Space Marine doctrines to meekly stroll into a potential enemy encampment without any explosives or shooting involved, but Benjamin hadn’t been completely brainwashed by his basic training due the fact a Space Marine Librarian was rather more dangerous than a standard armoured grunt with a bolter, and expected to exercise the stuff between their ears before doing something potentially dumb.

Benjamin concluded the Alda fishing settlement wasn’t a threat—neither were the Dau he’d splattered the day previous, Benjamin mused as he proceed to stomp into the village with Moire keeping an alert watch on his shoulder pauldron.

A cat eared Alda villager out and about in the morning, saw him before long – and after a moment of staring, decided running away screaming into a house was called for. This alerted other Alda whom came out to gawk a moment, before ducking indoors and slamming doors and shutters closed. 

Benjamin paid it no mind, he just walked up to the target window and peered inside at the people whom were hastily getting dressed...well, aside from the familiar wide eyed fluffy orange cat whom was keeping watch on the window.

“Waugh!,” Fluffy screamed at Benjamin’s appearance at the window.

The cat eared redhead woman abandoned getting dressed from the clothes she’d hung from the rafters, in favour of drawing her rapier which was leaning next to her bedside, then pause in surprised as she exclaimed, “Space Marine?”

“Waugh!,” a frightened Fluffy screamed again as he fled behind Sammy whom managed to at least pull his jumpsuit pants on after rolling out of bed, and pulled out a survival ‘Flashlight’ lasgun which he pointed to the window and Benjamin.

“Sammy? Fluffy??,” Benjamin asked, looked at the three inside the room of the inn, “What are you two doing here?”

“Grampa?,” the Asian boy paused then spotted the familiar miniature golden dragon whom had taken to hanging around his grandfather lately, and with growing certainty Sammy lowered the lasgun and asked, “You’re stuck in this training simulation too?”

“Simulation?...What training simulation?,” it was at that moment the light bulb lit and Benjamin grasped what had been happening to him, ever since he landed in this weird dystopian science fiction soap opera. Simulated training sessions were a thing amongst the Space Marines, that he bowed his head and wondered why it never occurred to him before, then punched a hole in the adobe wall with his power armoured fist, “Oh, Bullshit!“

Benjamin got the feeling a save point event had just occurred.

* * *

Grampa doesn’t get angry, so it was something of a shock to know that he could lose his temper, when he put his fist through the wall. Miri, Fluffy and I had prudently retreated to the opposite side of the wall to avoid the spray of falling debris and dust as the relatively fragile mud brick wall somehow managed to remain standing, but the whole side of the inn shook with the crash and a sprinkling of dust fell from the rafters from the impact, like you’d probably expect from a car or small truck smack into your house.

The property damage wasn’t intentional, though, and Grampa extracted his arm from the hole in the wall, with an oddly embarrassed awkwardness of someone who’s filled with instant regret at breaking something in a temper tantrum. Moire scampered from shoulder to shoulder behind Grampa’s neck as he backed off from the wall, which now seemed about to crumble in on itself from the blow...the amount of damage power armour can do even by accident, is nothing to be sneezed at.

I’d heard it said that power armour isn’t like strapping on body armour, or even like Kaskrin armour which has body armour plates strapped onto a light weight power assisted frame, which equips the Fleet’s elite army infantry units. A Kaskrin can still move around under their own muscle power, if their exoskeleton frame lost power...a Space Marine is pretty much stuck in place needing a crane to move, in the extremely unlikely event of a power outage – it’s tantamount to strapping on an armoured vehicle with similar drawbacks regarding mobility, than personal body armour.

“Everyone okay?,” Grampa asked as he stomped around outside with indecision whether to barge in and try rescuing us, “Sammy?”

“We’re good!,” Fluffy shouted back as he scooted out from behind me, and darted up and out the window outside in the event the collateral damage the room had suffered would bring the roof down.

“Coming!,” I called out, shrugging into the top of my jumpsuit and slapping on the fastener tabs as I followed the cat across the room, and out through the window retrieving my boots and socks that were still hanging out as Miri picked up her rapier and sheathed it while grabbing the rest of her clothes which she shrugged on, and retrieved her thigh length boots which were hanging outside the window beside mine, “Wow – this looks as bad as when Uncle Lex forgot to put on the brake, and took out the back gate at the restaurant when he rolled the car into it.”

Now that I got a good look at the cracked and broken wall outside, it looked much worse than was apparent from inside the room.

“We might want to start running, before someone summons to courage to come out and ask us to pay for this,” Fluffy commented, inspecting the damaged exterior wall with interest at how much a Space Marine’s fist could do.

“Specialist Miri reporting,” Miri said as she hopped and pulled her boots on, “Please warn the Fleet this system has an active Nekoron presence.”

“The Fleet is aware of the issue. The rest of my Chapter’s on the ground and up to their necks in the mechanoids the next continent over after the Nekorons took a pot shot at our Battle Barge,” Grampa’s face might have been hidden behind the anonymity of a Space Marine helmet, but I could tell he wanted to hug me – which was a life threatening proposition in Space Marine medium power armour. He settled for letting me steady myself against him as I put my socks and boots on, “Now...does Command Authority, Override Simulation Scenario mean anything to you?”

Something odd happened to Miri.

She stiffened, and the whole world seemed to just go unnaturally...still...

“...C0MM4ND 4UTH0R1TY 4CKN0WL3DG3D, 0V3RR1D3 S1MUL4T10N...,” Miri said in a deep reverberating mechanical voice that was completely alien to her usual voice as she abruptly dropped what she was doing and stood upright.

Fluffy and I exchanged shocked glances, that Grampa had a direct effect on our simulated world.

“Why didn’t that work for you?,” I asked the cat, who was stunned speechless that Grampa had direct access to whatever was manipulating us.

More confident, Grampa continued, “Command Authority, Exit Simulation!”

“...C0MM4ND 4UTH0R1TY 1N$UFF1C3NT, R3QU1R3 PR3R3QU1$1T3$, 3XP3D1T3 4CQU1$1T10N?...”

There’s an awful phenomena known as the ‘train wreck in motion’, whereby you as a bystander can only watch helpless as some horrible preventable accident rolls towards its inevitable conclusion.

“Yes,” Grampa was on the roll.

“NO!,” Fluffy and I squealed as we both jumped into action at having our access slip out of our grasp, “NONONONONO!”

“...4CKN0WL3DG3D, TUT0R14L M0D3 D1$3NG4G3D...,” Miri stated in that eery mechanical voice as Fluffy and I jumped on her, in a futile attempt physically stop what was happening, “...$1MUL4T10N R3$UM3...”

But it was much too late.

The world came back to life around us and Miri began screaming and trying to beat Fluffy and I off.

“Command authority, override simulation scenario,” Grampa ordered as he looked around, but nothing happened to stop the simulation again as he repeated firmly, “Override simulation scenario!”

“What is WRONG with you two?,” Miri screamed as she danced around and pushed at the both of us off, “Get Off ME!”

Funny, how desperation makes logic go out the window – otherwise sane and rational people go berserk and clingy at the silliest of moments, when they should be acting with dignity and decorum...well, at least the adults think that’s supposed to be the way they’d behave, when the chips are down. 

Somehow, I get the impression a lot of adults are hypocrites because the seeds of who you are, are sown in childhood – and people, especially westerners, don’t get spanked nearly enough in those formative years to smack them back in line.

People just don’t learn very well, without some applied violence.

We’d lost our window of opportunity to hack the simulation through Grampa, and escape it...and now we were stuck for the long ride.

* * *

The sound of a space craft or drop pod crashing through an atmosphere is anything but stealthy, that the science fiction depiction of orbital re-entry by masses of soldiers dropping in from orbit achieving any kind of ‘surprise’, is, well, science fiction.

There is quite a loud double sonic boom which can be heard for hundreds of kilometres, that a ‘Space Marine’ planetary assault is often mistaken for an orbital bombardment. The double sonic boom is not the only indicator that one’s world is about to be subject to a lot of violence and mayhem, as the rather distinct sign of vehicles burning through atmosphere shows up on any halfway decent thermal scanner upon on re-entry, and the long lines of contrails behind pods or spacecraft marking ‘shoot here’ to any enemy with anti-aircraft capability, is also quite detrimental to stealthy ingress.

Ergo, you aren’t likely to get on the ground from orbit without everyone below you knowing about it, unless you possess some kind of science fiction gravity assist and shield technology to slow the hell down enough that you’re below the speed of sound, and aren’t burning brightly like a welding arc from the atmospheric friction with a thermal signature to match.

Grampa, Fluffy and I along with Miri, looked up as we all watched the landing shuttle burn its way in across the sky when the tip o the contrail was suddenly bisected by a green lance of energies that were distinctive of a Nekoron particle whip. High up in the atmosphere, the shuttle which Grampa had sent a requested to pick us up from the Battle Barge after we’d moved away from the fishing village, broke up into several burning pieces accompanied by the rumble of thunder.

“Damn. The mechanoids have gotten their planetary defences back up,” Grampa said gravely after long moments, watching the flaming wreckage tumbling across the sky, “So much for the easy way off this rock.”

“Great,” Fluffy commented darkly, “Our best bet is to get back across the ocean to the other continent, where the rest of the Space Marines are holed up.”

“Grampa, we just saw a few of your Space Marine friends get blown up,” I said, disturbed at Grampa’s uncharacteristic indifference to the fact the shuttle he’d sent for, was now spreading scattered debris along with the people inside, “How can you be so callous?”

“Callous?,” Grampa paused thoughtfully, then shook his head, “Space Marines die, that’s what we’re here for. But The Fleet will live forever so long as there is one Space marine to defend it, for there is no deadlier thing in the universe is a Space Marine with a Bolter and a Mission, and no Xeno can kill all of us in one blow...or at least, that’s what this simulated life would have me believe.”

“Think of this like a dream where you’re running away from something that can never catch you,” Fluffy added with similar indifference, glancing skywards at the distant falling debris and shrugging as he ambled up to Grampa and began aggressively rubbing his scent on Grampa’s armour shin, before the cat was satisfied he’d rubbed enough of his smell off to identify Grampa as a friend at first sniff, “Nothing in the dream really dies, unless we do.”

“Fluffy, that’s a nightmare you’re describing,” I said, a disconcerting upset feeling that the nanites inside us were brain wash us to their mysterious nefarious will.

“Nightmares end, Sam,” Fluffy said as he turned from Grampa and trotted past us with an unconcerned cat air as he headed back towards the fishing village, “Come on. We just got to make sure that we don’t die before then – ”

Before I could ask Fluffy why he was heading back to the fishing village, green lightning snaked out from the bushes which instantly shrivelled and burst into flame, and connected to his nose. The green lighting lit the unsuspecting cat up from within, that his skeleton seemed to shin through his fur like an exposed X-ray in those offputting cartoons where someone gets electrocuted, before the cat suddenly swelled up in his orange fur from his flesh and organs flash vaporising from the green energies and turning into steam before popping into a puff of dust and heat.

“FLUFFEE – !,” I began to shout as the green lightning also touched me even as Grampa drew his bolter sidearm and began to push me behind him, even as green lightning crawled over his armour and turning spots into molten puddles, trying to find a way to his flesh...and Miri, well, she only had time to open her mouth to scream as green energies erupted...

And then...I died...

* * *

...5...4...3...2...1...R3$P4WN...

* * *

“AAAAGH!,” Fluffy and I screamed with memories of pain of searing our simulated nerves, waking up in bed and clutching each other with our hearts drumming in a fight or flight reaction.

“Hey, is something wrong?,” Miri asked, having jumped out of her bed and drawn her rapier as she looked around for sign of the threat which had made Fluffy and I scream, then relaxed slightly upon not finding it, “Oh, I was wondering when this might happen...Bad nightmare, huh?”

“AAAAGH,” Fluffy and I screamed again, eyes darting around the intact familiar room in the inn which Grampa had pretty much wrecked...only he hadn’t, not yet – and maybe never would.

“Sammy? Fluffy?,” Grampa enquired from outside, as he and Moire on his shoulder peered through the window behind the anonymity of his Space Marine helmet, “You two okay?”

“Space Marine!,” Miri exclaimed, lowering her rapier completely with a smile, “Look! We’re Saved!”

Fluffy and I broke out in tears, which a smiling Miri interpreted as crying with relief and oblivious to the fact she’d ‘died’ just a moment ago – NPCs are like that...Fluffy, Grampa and I, well, we knew the nightmare had only just begun as Miri carried on like she’d never met Grampa.

We’d woken up in the ‘Fishing village of Beginnings’ after dying in the last scenario of the nightmare, instead of waking safe and sound in our beds in Sydney...and that, did not bode well for our immediate future.

And then, as Fluffy and I clutched each other like an abused animal and young child, I understood the terrible truth about Tutorial Mode.

Tutorial mode was off.

That meant we could die in the Sim now.

* * *


	51. The Coven's Playdate

...Australia...Earth...1974...

Bethany woken to the rhythmic wooden click, to find Squee the Spider occupying a corner of her bedroom ceiling a corner of her ceiling wielding two pairs of knitting needles making a pair of orange mittens from Fluffy fur yarn the spider had collected from combing the cat.

This being Australia where strange spiders as big as Squee did in fact exist, the little blonde girl had a brief fleeting instinctive urge to scream at the terrifying macabre sight of the giant grey furry arachnid in her bedroom smiling at her with big fangs, before she recognised her friend and sat up to looked around for the wombat in her room who was supposed to be keeping her safe.

“Good Morning, Everyone!,” Bethany stretched absently adjusted Groo the Slug whom was warmly sucking on her scalp and perched atop her blonde hair like a beret, the little girl having located the lurking brown wombat at the foot of her bed, with forepaws clinging to the edge and peering over the rim at her with shiny beady eyes, “Thanks for keeping the nasty noisy mousies away!”

“Groo.”

“Snarf.”

“Squee.”

The replies to the greeting came from atop Bethany’s head and around the bedroom, as the bright green eyed little girl threw back the covers and swung her little legs over the side of the bed into her new orange ‘kitty slippers’ which her friend Squee had gifted her with. The pitter patter of Bethany’s little feet quickly drumming on the floor to the bathroom to attend to her morning hygiene routine, was a wake up tattoo for her mother to beat to quarters in the kitchen as the Stewart household woke up to a new morning.

Bethany bared her teeth as Groo the Slug used its pseudopods to help brush her teeth, the slug expertly manipulating the toothbrush around the little girl’s mouth and wiping the bacteria devouring tip of its tendril over milk teeth, for that extra squeaky clean feeling that Bethany had come to like very much after discovering the benefits of having a Familiar.

Really, it didn’t make a whole lot of logical sense why those old fairy tales always described witches as toothless old hags with bad personal hygiene, as Bethany’s witchy experience with Groo not only kept her teeth cleaner than she could manage on her own with her toothbrush, but also helped scrub her back and wash her hair in the bath as well.

“Hi Daddy!,” the little girl greeted as she passed her father Gregory on the way back to her bedroom, whom eyed Groo with an inscrutable half lidded look of a man trying to discern whether or not he was okay with greeting ‘imaginary’ creatures which might cause his wife a great deal of angst that he was having one of those PTSD relapses, “Me and Groo are going over to Sammy’s place to play after breakfast!”

“Okay. Just remember to tell Mommy where you’re going so she doesn’t worry you’re alone,” Gregory glanced at the kitchen where his wife was making breakfast, then patted the blue and yellow furred slug pretending to be a beanie atop his daughter’s head, “Remember, Mommy can’t see – Squishies.”

Bethany nodded enthusiastically at her father’s, sending the slug’s ping pong eyeballs at the end of its stalks bobbing as she replied in an exaggerated secretive whisper, “Mommy isn’t a Witch like us.”

The little girl skipped back to her bedroom to get changed and retrieve Snarf and Squee to eat breakfast, where and oblivious Kirsten looked on with amusement as her daughter set places for her ‘imaginary friends’ which seemed to stimulate her appetite for she ate a lot more than was usual.

Bethany and Gregory wasn’t sure what Kirsten was seeing, but ignoring the unnatural creatures at the breakfast table was an exercise in Herculean self control. Pretending the three Squishies weren’t there to pander to Kirsten’s mundane sensibilities, proved to be an unnecessary precaution as Kirsten’s delusion of domestic normality had managed to gloss over the presence of the non-humans, whom she rationalised as her husband humouring her daughter’s play acting with her imaginary friends.

Quite suddenly, Bethany heard a dial tone as Groo the Slug extended its pseudopods and curled them up into discs which it covered over her ears.

“Hi? Is this Bet?,” Tanya Armstrong’s squeaky voice enquired over the medium of Groo the Slug.

“Um, yeah?,” Bethany glanced up at the slug’s eyes at the end of their stalks, earning an odd look from her father at the breakfast table.

“Hey, it’s me, Tanya!,” the girl at the other end of the supernatural medium exclaimed brightly, “Is it okay to come over and play today?”

Bethany cocked her head, looking at her curious father, whom was pretending to read the morning paper whilst observing the Squishies at the table, “Daddy – Tanya wants to know if it’s okay for everyone to come over and play at my place today?”

“Hi, I’d like to come over too!,” Jacqueline’s chirpy voice exclaimed, apparently she was already connected to the discussion.

“Jacqueline too,” Bethany added as other girls of the Coven made their presence known and began chiming their interest in coming over to the Stewart’s place to play, “Um, make that all my friends.”

“I don’t see a problem with that,” Gregory replied, gesturing at his own ears, “Is Groo communicating to you through those headphones?”

“Mm hmm,” Bethany hummed affirmatively as she nodded, then replied to the little girls on the other end of the medium, “Sure, my Dad say’s it’s okay to come over a play. Come on over.”

“Cool!,” Tanya gushed enthusiastically, “Give us your phone number, so our parents can get in contact and set things up for us to come over today.”

“Okay, it’s - ,” Bethany gave her home phone number and the little girls broke off the contact with promises to get in touch soon, as Gregory contemplated the whole abnormally normal eldritch method of communications which his daughter had just demonstrated through her sluggy beret shaped Familiar.

“Does that happen a lot?,” Gregory asked after Groo withdrew its conical headphone like pseudopods back into itself, and Bethany resumed eating breakfast with an expectant smile at her friends coming over to play later, “Your friends talking to you like that.”

“Sure Daddy, we chat with each other through our Groo Familiars all the time when we’re alone. It’s easy to just let grownups believe we’re talking to imaginary friends, because it’s a secret we’re all Witches,” Bethany replied with a child’s unassuming innocence, “It’s how everyone in the Coven keeps updated on Witch stuff, without having to go and see each other face to face.”

Gregory blinked a few moments at his daughter’s explanation as a few myths and legends regarding people in ancient times, somehow possessing a paranormal sense to know what was going on several thousands of kilometres away without the benefit of modern communications like radio, TV or telephones, suddenly made a whole lot of sense.

Just then the telephone started ringing.

“Got it,” Kirsten called from the kitchen as she answered the analogue phone, paused a moment, then poked her head out to the dining room where her husband and daughter were eating breakfast – and not seeing the brown wombat or grey spider sharing the table at all, “Bethany, are you okay to play with your friend Tanya today?”

“Sure, Mommy,” Bethany piped up with a smile and a nod, “I was going to go play with Fluffy and Sammy after breakfast.”

“Okay, good, I’ll tell her it’s okay then,” Kirsten replied as she ducked back into the kitchen and continued her parental networking and socialising with Tanya Armstrong’s mother on the phone. No sooner had the redhead mother hung up, than the phone rang again and Kirsten found herself fielding an enquiry from Jacqueline Holme’s parents about babysitting their daughter for the day.

Bethany tilted her nose up in the air and kicked her feet under the chair as the telephone continued ringing as soon as her mother put the phone back on the hook, it was good having friends who made an effort to come play with her.

* * *

The neighbourhood’s female cats keeping surveillance on the environs of the Sung’s house, watched as the stinky moving shelters dropped off excited little girls whom had been identified previously, when they’d come to visit. 

The little squeaky humans engaged in scent exchange activities, embracing and rubbing each other upon meeting on the front yard of the neighbouring household, their greetings accompanied by gushy high pitched cries not unlike kittens calling out, whilst their bigger parents display more terse aloof territorial displays and verbal growls, before being driven off by Red Fur as they got back into their stinky moving shelters and apparently abandoning their young.

The squeaky little girls seemed not at all concerned with the abandonment, that after a few moments more observation by the feline observers, it was evident to the curious thoughtful feline watchers that the little girls were the human equivalent of a litter of a female feline colony which formed for mutual protection to look after kittens, and Red Fur was the designated minder whom cared after the young, whilst the others had gone off in the smelly carriages to hunt for food.

Scent exchange greetings complete under the watchful eyes of Red Fur, the group of chirpy little girls migrated over to the Sung household where they ‘meowed’ for attention in front of the low ground floor balcony, just like any litter of kittens crying for attention. When no reply was forthcoming, the group of little girls went around to the front door of the house which swung open of its own accord.

The little girls gestured to each other to follow and called out to Red Fur that all was well, before they all blithely disappeared inside the fearsome house which grated upon feline nerves...and the door shut behind them as the unwitting Red Fur smiled and turned away.

The neighbourhood cats continued their vigil, watching for the things which Man could not See...

* * *

Bethany Stewart led the way to her neighbour’s bedroom and turned the corner, only to find her friends weren’t following as the group of wide eyed little girls looked back at the front door, which had abruptly closed behind them and abruptly shut out the noises of the outside world in a cocoon of silence, that was a little uncanny.

“Hey, come on,” Bethany called to her friends as she poked her head back around the corner.

The House had opened up the front door for them, and the innocent little children had walked right into the house of horrors without a second thought.

“Um, Bet – don’t you think it’s a little spooky, about a door which opens and closes on its own?,” Jacqueline Holmes asked the unfazed green eyed blonde.

The group of little girls had gotten their parents to call ahead to Bethany’s mother, Kirsten, to get permission to come over and play, before getting their parents to ferry them over for the play date. It was quite unlike the other day where they’d wandered over several blocks on their own little feet, that their parents knew exactly where they were...well, within a margin of error.

“You’ve never seen an automatic door before?,” Bethany shook her head in a superior fashion of a child having come into possession of secret knowledge, “It’s pretty obvious a Squishy is hidden somewhere we can’t see, opening and closing them.”

“Ohhh,” the group of little girls standing in the hallway chorused, nodding sagely with sudden understanding at one of the minor mysteries in their world view clearing up.

“Well, I guess,” Jacqueline touched the Squishy possessed closed door, running her little fingers on the wooden grain with a thoughtful frown, “I thought grownups couldn’t use magic, and had to settle for electric motors and electronics.”

The inquisitive group of little girls invited themselves in to the Sung household after waiting outside and patiently calling for their two friends to come out and play without response – they’d trustingly gone inside, for the simple reason the door had opened for them.

“You know – when the TV or radio misbehaves because of bad reception, my dad says it might be gremlins,” Gwendolynn Ivanovic mused aloud, the green eyed little redhead rubbed her snub nose as she thought, “Who’s to say electrical stuff isn’t just Squishies humouring grownups, by making them think things are working?”

“Squishies,” Amelie Sorensen agreed as the blue and yellow hairband holding her blonde hair in place, which sprouted a pair of semi spherical eyeballs along the band which studied the girls a moment, before squeezing shut and disappearing back into being a hair ornament, “Maybe electricity is just another type of magic?”

“My Groo can make funny shapes and faces on the TV,” Katie Lohres volunteered proudly, touching her plush blue and yellow Familiar whom was pretending to be a furry bracelet on her right wrist, which had sprouted a pair of marble sized semi spherical white eyeballs which blinked at the girls, “And also switch the lights on and off without touching anything, but I told him to stop playing with electricity because it’s dangerous.”

“Hmm – come on, lets go wake Fluffy and Sammy and ask them,” Bethany said as the girls moved in mutual herd mentality towards the Asian boy’s bedroom.

The door swung open and the group of wide eyes little girls apprehensively looked within the wild alien environs of a boy’s bedroom, as the monsters within looked right back at the little female intruders for long moments. 

Then the squat mechanical skeleton of a wombat with sinister green glowing internals in its chest and eyes witch a small cloned army of miniature skeletal mechanical wombats shambling around its hind paws with a zombielike gait, tossed the pair of fluffy orange dice on the parquetry which bounced to a result which the avidly watching onlookers loomed over, then the odd looking bony white armoured spider with serrated claws on its back and army of insectoid spiderlike creatures clad in white bio-armour with red highlights, consulted a soft cover magazine titled ‘Tyrannids’ to interpret the results of the ‘omens’.

Off to the side, a big green tinted bipedal slug with a red beret and wicked looking tusks jutting up from its bottom jaw, held court with its own cadre of odd green tinted two legged red capped miniatures whom were armed with a plethora of brutish looking chunky makeshift weapons.

“Oh,” Bethany blinked, then nonchalantly stepped over the threshold as she gestured her friends come inside, “You guys still cosplaying 40K with Fluffy and Sammy?”

“Cosplaying?,” Gwendolynn Ivanovic wrinkled her little delicate nose as she followed her fearless friend whom had stepped into the den of fearsome Squishy monsters, “Is that even a real word?”

The redhead little girl turned to the other six members of the Witch’s Coven, whom just like her, wore blue and yellow friendly furry slug monsters atop their heads disguised like berets and hair ornaments in their hair – whom either shrugged or shook their heads in reply.

“Groo thinks it is,” Bethany replied with a thoughtful look, adjusting the slug sitting on her head as she looked at the miniature green squeaky slugs brandishing miniature weapons for admiration, “Squishies have been cosplaying as ghosts, angels and demons and strange make believe animals for ages. They’ve even got a special holiday for it called Hallow’s Evening.”

“Halloween,” Jacqueline Holmes said flatly, the bookish brunette pinched the bridge of her nose in thought as the Groo sitting in her brown hair fed her information, “They use to call it Samhain, before the Americans got their paws on it and made it an excuse for going around robbing people of candy. Figures they made a holiday out of highway robbery.”

“Ah?,” Amelie Sorensen nodded with sudden enlightenment, as the wholesome little blue eyed blonde squinted at the glowing green power source inside the chest cavity of the mechanical wombat, then giggled as she turned to the her inquisitive friends whom were examining the little Squishies “Hey, I think these guys normally cosplay as will-o’wisps.”

“Come to think, aren’t you guys supposed to be goblins?,” Katie Lohres accused the green tinted bipedal slugs, her brown eyes narrowing at the distinctive red berets the slugs wore, “Hey, you’re Redcaps!”

The Redcaps grinned at Katie with big toothy unsluglike smiles as they brandished their weapons as they struck a menacing pose while the biggest of the slugs procured a book titled ‘Orks’ with a menacing looking bulky green skinned troll on the cover. The little brunette was momentarily frightened before remembering these were her Squishy friends, who were just pretending to be murderous goblins from Scottish myths with a penchant for dying their beret in the blood of their victims. The black haired little girl cautiously reached out and patted the beret of a redcap whom obligingly leaned into her touch, and Katie nodded to herself as it was dry to touch.

“Heh, it’s silly to wear a soggy stinking mess on your heads,” an emboldened Katie shook her head and dismissed her childish fears, that these were definitely not the same redcaps in the fables her father read to her at bedtime, “Okay, so you’re just doing this cosplay re-enactment thing, pretending to be redcaps – um, these Orks.”

The Squishy Redcap whom Katie had patted on the head, nodded, quite pleased – modern dyes were so much longer lasting than the traditional methods.

“And you’re supposed to be a Tyranid,” Tanya Armstrong asked the big alien spidery thing with serrated claws on its shoulders looming over her, then gestured the Squishy hand over the book with the terrible looking rampaging alien insectoid on the cover, which the little athletic blonde girl proceeded to leaf through before slapping the soft cover magazine with a slap and enlightened smile, “Okay – I see. You’re pretending to be Space Spider monsters.”

Bethany nodded approvingly as her chatty friends were got acquainted with the Squishies, whom she’d previously taught how to play dress up the last time the House had let her inside the Sung’s place to play. Squishy miniatures were so much more fun to play pretend and dress up with, than the rather uninteresting Barbie doll she’d received from her grandparents for Christmas.

The little green eyed blonde’s attention turned to her neighbour’s bed, where the young Asian boy slept fitfully with covers thrown back as he twitched, with the big orange fluffy cat draped over his stomach like a makeshift orange comforter with mouth subconsciously parted in what looked like a feline scream as he shivered and kicked his paws every so often.

Bethany sucked on her bottom lip as she looked upon the two vulnerable males, whom were caught up in a nightmarish dream...then again, they’d gotten better pretty fast when they’d woken up yesterday, so maybe letting them both sleep a little longer, wasn’t a bad thing? 

“Why are they waving their arms and legs like that?,” Amelie Sorensen who’d approached Bethany to observed the twitching fluffy orange cat lying across the stomach of the little Asian boy on the bed, whose mouths were parted in silence screams as the jellyfish like brain monster with pulsing rainbow light ran up and down the tendrils plugged into their ears and scalp, hovered above the two, “It’s like they’re trying to run away from a bad dream.”

“It’s a game, like they’re inside a bedtime fairytale,” Bethany Stewart replied with a child’s confident knowledge, gesturing over at the cosplaying Squishies, “These guys are inside the Dream, playing with Fluffy and Sammy as different monster races.”

“Hey, come look at the pictures in these books! There’s monsters and stuff like demons in them!,” an excited Jacqueline Holmes exclaimed in a squeaky voice as she gestured to her friends, the young brunette having coerced a Redcap green slug and shaken it down to reveal a stack of soft covered books, one of which was ominously titled ‘Dark Heresy – Disciples of the Dark Gods’, “I think these books are all Grimoires! Or that Necronomnom thing I remember reading something about in my library at home.”

“Oh, no, that’s the rule book with the glowing green mechanical skeleton monsters – like skeleton Snarf over there is pretending to be,” Bethany proudly corrected her friend with her limited knowledge from what she’d read the previous morning, the thought as to what kind of library Jacqueline’s parents had with such books never even crossing her mind, “And it’s Necrons, they’re baddies.”

“Ahhh,” the enlightened group of little girls gushed as they began examining the stash of books which Jacqueline had pried out of the cosplaying monsters.

“Hmm – my Mom and Dad say I shouldn’t look at that kind of thing, because the devil is going come take me away if I’m not a good girl,” Monica Aoife O’Reilly wrinkled her nose as her curiosity got the better of her despite the Catholic upbringing, and picked up another soft cover book titled ‘Dark Heresy – Heresy Begets Retribution’ with a painting of a stern looking woman in plate armour on the cover holding what was presumably a bible in the crook of her arm...and a big gun in her other hand. The sceptical brown haired little Irish girl leafed through the book, her brown eyes dilating with interest and a smile growing on her lips as she found out what an Adepta Sororitas was, “Oh, cool...Nuns with Guns. I like.”

“But watch this, everyone – this is real magic,” Bethany said in a moment of thoughtlessness as she turned her back on the boys and his orange cat on the bed, tilted her nose up smugly as she addressing the costumed Squishies in the room with right hand held out palm up in a gimme gimme grasping motion, “We want to Play with Fluffy and Sammy in the Dream World. I want some dice!”

Groo atop the young blonde’s head like a beret, grasped the thoughts and sent it around to its inhuman costumed eldritch brethren whom stilled.

“Ohhhh,” the startled little girls chorused as a miniature landscape suddenly sprang up around their ankles.

“Look, there are tiny people!,” a fascinated Gwendolyn Ivanovic knelt down on hands and knees amidst the intangible house she was crouched amidst, to take a closer look at the interesting miniature people walking around what looked to be a bustling medieval portside city with shiny green eyes, “This is Awesome, it’s the ultimate dollhouse.”

“Wow, look at the detail of everything!,” Amelie Sorsensen said as she examined an intricately garbed ‘noble woman’ garbed in fancy crinoline dress being escorted through the cobblestone streets by her armed guard escort of cat eared knights, “This leaves playing with Barbie dolls for dead.”

“Hey, look – it’s Fluffy and Sammy!,” Katie Lohres suddenly exclaimed, recognising the two as there was only one non-cat eared boy and big fluffy orange cat in the scenario, whom were standing beside an curiously anachronistic bulky suit of camouflaged pattern power armour and a redhead cat eared woman whom was haggling with a gaudily dressed ship captain.

Bethany glanced guiltily at the boy and his cat draped over him on the bed, as she walked amidst the intangible medieval cityscape like a childlike giant, and failed the saving roll of recalling the guilty memory of the Sammy and Fluffy’s traumas yesterday. 

That was forgotten with a child’s absent mindedness living in the immediate ‘now’, who was showing off to her circle of fascinated wide eyed oohing and ahhing friends.

The children were making gushy little girl squeaky noises at their new playground, as they explored the thousand and one intricate miniaturised details of the city which had sprung to life under the feet, from the tiny depiction of little people with triangular ears atop their heads selling fish in the market to climbing up on the rigging of sailing ships in the harbour.

“Are you sure this is safe?,” a concerned Jacqueline Holmes hesitated, the tiny world she was towering over like a little goddess was disturbingly lifelike – everything moved and had a life of its own, “I mean, didn’t you say Sammy and Fluffy are inside this ‘Dream’?”

The last ditch attempt of a child using logic to bridge the chasm of the human condition, crumbled in the face of a child’s world view of the immediate need to satiate the urge to play, though.

“Yeah, nothing bad happened when they woke up after I played with them yesterday morning,” the green eyed blonde shrugged off the concern and bent over to pick up a pair of fluffy orange dice in her chubby hands which the wombat cosplaying a Nekoron had tossed earlier, and tossed them into the air to the watching eyes of her friends whom were eagerly curious as to what effect that would have, “Lets play!”

Kids are thoughtlessly cruel that way. 

* * *

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* * *


End file.
